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The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is a multi-stakeholder non-profit organization that aims to improve cloud security through a variety of activities. Sitting in the CEO chair of the CSA is Jim Reavis, who is tasked with leading the organization and moving the state of cloud security forward.
In a video interview with eWEEK, Reavis explained what his role is within CSA and what is the role of CSA within the cloud community. Reavis said that the CSA develops a meta-framework that is focused on how cloud computing can be secured.
“Even though we’re funded more by the cloud provider side, we try to be the voice of the consumer user of cloud,” Reavis said.
The cloud consumer in a cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering is also tasked with a significant amount of responsibility when it comes to actually securing their own use of the cloud. Reavis said that the onus is on the cloud IaaS consumer to understand how to encrypt information and how to create the proper security groups.
One of the key efforts currently being undertaken by the CSA is known as the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP), which was originally announced in November 2013. SDP will bring improved security controls across the network. Reavis explained that work is now going on in an open source project as an initial technical implementation of the SDP concept.
Moving forward, the CSA is working to get security controls and practices more deeply embedded into the cloud industry. Securing the Internet of Things is also set to be an area of concern for the CSA as well. Reavis noted that the Internet of Things will largely be controlled by the cloud. Big Data is another area that will also fall under the purview of the CSA in the coming months as Big Data increasingly resides in the cloud.
Watch the full video interview with Jim Reavis below:
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.