Monitoring On Premise, as a Service or Hybrid

Among the technology services that a company may need is, of course, the monitoring of the infrastructure.
Consequently, it can be deployed in several ways:

Local, commonly referred to as On-Premise.
In the cloud, either public or private
Or by combining the above solutions, i.e. in a hybrid form.

What would be the right deployment and which one offers the security you need? In this blogpost we want to explore the basics of each option and show you the security considerations.

On-premise

In general, when the infrastructure is located locally, datacenters (or data centers) are physically located on an organization's installations or in a place suitable for hosting infrastructure. The applications used by that company and all the data associated with them are stored in the infrastructure itself. This allows the organization to fully control its own security and access to data and applications. However, this also means that the company is responsible for maintaining the hardware from which the services are delivered and for maintaining security and access to that location where its infrastructure is located.

If we focus on how WOCU is deployed in these cases, we see that the WOCU servers would be part of the infrastructure that the company must maintain, although in our case, for maintenance and updates of our monitoring solution we always ask to have VPN access to the machines to carry it out, although it is not always possible precisely because of security limitations, as in the case of public administration.

Cloud SaaS

Cloud or SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions are hosted and delivered through an external cloud. All data and configuration is stored in the cloud and does not reside on the customer's premises. Application updates, along with all security and availability, are usually the responsibility of the provider delivering the service, with no physical servers involved. Cloud solutions are also generally subscription-based and involve a monthly or annual fee for usage.

Hybrid cloud

A hybrid cloud solution is one in which an organization uses a combination of on-premises public cloud and private cloud services. It can offer flexibility by allowing peak workloads to be distributed between the two locations when more resources are needed. It is common for sensitive data to be hosted in the private cloud, and less critical services in a public cloud.

If a company has regulatory requirements for data management and storage, this can be provided in the private cloud. Public cloud services provide scalability, so a company pays only for the resources it consumes. The important thing is to have the technology in place to allow the two clouds to connect and interact.

The services provided by A3Sec also include the option of using WOCU as a service. In this case, metrics and event data are indexed and stored in our own cloud, with only a small satellite remaining at the customer's premises, being the link to the main monitoring console that also resides in the A3Sec cloud.

Which deployment option is the most secure?

There is really no simple answer to this question, as it depends largely on the security of the applications being used and how access to the applications is maintained and secured, regardless of which option is chosen. One could argue that on-premises solutions are the least secure, as they depend entirely on the security of the infrastructure itself and the ability of the IT team to keep everything up to date. Maintaining applications and server operating systems becomes the sole responsibility of the organization. Network security and how users access services must also be considered.

While cloud SaaS offers a cost-effective solution to many of the problems of on-premises datacenters, it is vital to remember that not all cloud SaaS is the same. Verify how the provider's application is delivered, find out if it supports a high level of security, such as TLS encryption. It is also important to know how the cloud service is delivered and the service provider. This will affect both the security and speed of the chosen service.

In our case, our cloud resides with the service provider Hetzner, which has datacenters in Nuremberg, Falkenstein (Germany) and Helsinki (Finland) and operates according to European regulations (which are usually more restrictive than those of other countries).

Hybrid cloud can be seen as the best of both worlds, offering great security and scalability. However, it is a more complex and therefore sometimes more expensive alternative to the SaaS cloud.

Which deployment method is better?

As described, the delivery method will depend on each use case, the sensitivity of the data and the budget each company has. With the increasing threat levels to data security, it is vital to fully explore what is involved in each of the delivery options offered by vendors and analysis in how they deliver services from the cloud and how secure it is, as not all services are the same. Hardware and personnel costs should also be taken into account if considering on-premises options. Having all the facts when performing the analysis will ensure that the decision made is the right one for the business.