Basic Guide for Data Center Security – Part 1
September 4, 2019Configuring or Customizing Your LIMS
September 10, 2019As discussed in Part 1, the field of data center security covers the physical technology and software solutions utilized for the protection of data centers from cyber threats and attacks. Part 2 will discuss Software Security and Security Tiers.
Software Security
In order to safely deploy applications and code, software solutions can be used to scan them for exploit vulnerabilities, generate metrics, and provide remediation capabilities. As cloud computing grows in usage, the real-time monitoring of data flows has become a requirement because malware may be concealed within legitimate traffic.
Providing real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network hardware, SIEM (security information and event management) solutions are deployed to enhance data center security. SIEM products are used to log security data and generate reports for the purpose of compliance.
Security Tiers
A data center can be divided into four tiers. Each tier can be associated with a particular business function, allowing the proper settings to be determined for cooling, maintenance, and fault tolerance capability. In essence, each tier features the fault tolerance of its system as measured in uptime, indicating the type of security it requires.
Tiers 1 & 2
These tiers are generally utilized by small and medium-sized enterprises that are not providing services and products in real-time as the majority of their revenue. Tier 1 is made up of capacity components that are non-redundant like single uplink and servers. Incorporating Tier 1 requirements, Tier 2 also features redundant capacity components.
Tiers 3 & 4
Stringent uptime requirements as well as long-term viability are typically why the strategic solutions provided by Tier 3 and Tier 4 site infrastructure are selected. These data centers are thought to be stronger and less likely to fail. Tier 3 features Tier 1 and Tier 2 requirements, but it also has dual-powered equipment along with multiple uplinks. Tier 4 features the requirements of Tiers 1, 2, and 3, but it also has fully fault-tolerant components such as chillers, HVAC, storage, uplinks, and others.
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