Skyhigh Networks seeks seamless cloud

Few companies who have made the transition to cloud will agree that it has been seamless. Many rely on the professional services of their IT partners or bring in contractors to solve the problem for them. To resolve this Skyhigh Network has today announced three initiatives that it believes will help deliver a seamless cloud adoption.

Despite the claim by Skyhigh Networks to make cloud adoption seamless, all of these initiatives focus on cloud security rather than application compatibility or connectivity. Security is just one challenge that companies face. In a statement in the press release Rajiv Gupta, CEO of Skyhigh Networks said: “The average European enterprise now uses 1,038 cloud services and, as the first CASB [Cloud Access Security Broker] player in the market, these initiatives accelerate our quest to help organisations securely adopt applications.

“With the number of available services ever-growing, the extension to the CSL as well as the new architecture and partner programme will help enterprises to cut through the noise; enabling them to leverage the power of cloud applications with the most advanced security technologies in place.”

What are the initiatives?

The three initiatives are:

1. Extending Skyhigh Cloud Security Labs (CSL) to include Cloud Threat Intelligence: This is an extension of the existing threat intelligence work carried out by Skyhigh Networks. They already assess the number and the enterprise security claims around the cloud-based applications in use by their customers. This gives them access to over 23 million users and their cloud history. What Cloud Threat Intelligence will add is the ability to detect threats from cloud services through auditing. It also intends to increase its ability to respond to emerging threats by testing and validating any cloud services it encounters.
2. Introducing the industry’s first Cloud Security Reference Architecture: This is currently a 36-page document which companies can request a copy of here. Unfortunately it is only available to what Skyhigh Networks calls qualified enterprises and then only with a non-disclosure agreement in place. This is disappointing and while Skyhigh Networks claim they have the first CSRA in the market there are others from the likes of IBM, HP and Cisco to mention a few. By keeping it NDA and only available to enterprise customers it is not possible to compare it to the other CSRA out there.
3. The launch of Skyhigh’s extensive Cloud Security Technology Partner Programme: This is perhaps the most important and useful part of the announcement for many customers. One of the advantages of tracking cloud services and assigning them a security rating is that it provides IT departments with a risk assessment. Using the CASB technology Skyhigh Networks and other vendors possess, IT can advise users of risk and steer them towards a more secure service. This is essential if enterprises are not to continue to leak data. By engaging with over 50 vendors to help IT manage rather than simply block applications Skyhigh Networks will hope that partners will see this as a way to drive business to them.

Conclusion

These are three useful announcements although it is hard to see how they will create a seamless cloud integration solution. They are all part of a range of things that need to be fixed to make cloud seamless and it seems that Skyhigh Networks is reaching a little with this announcement.

The thing that will interesting most IT departments is the addition of 50 new technology partners. Providing cloud brokerage to end-users without being seen as a technology blocker is not a simple matter and IT departments are currently worried that they could further alienate users if they are too heavy handed.

It would be interesting to get a better look at the CSRA that Skyhigh Networks is promoting to see how it stacks up against the competition. For now, any CSRA that helps increase security and moves companies towards a trusted multi-cloud environment that supports user as well as enterprise choice is to be welcomed.