Re: [c-nsp] Current SP Cloud Security models

2012-03-13 Thread Nick Hilliard
On 13/03/2012 12:59, Joe Freeman wrote:
 I'm working on a design for a public cloud offering and the security guys
 are screaming that I need to implement network access control (from what
 they describe, it's 802.1x) in the underlying network as they claim the
 VRF/MPLS/VPLS/vlan model doesn't scale well in a cloud.

There are many scaling issues associated with virtualised environments,
that's for sure.

 That all news to me. I've been doing SP networks for a long time, but have
 never heard of a requirement for the SP to maintain 802.1x across the
 network, with a master AD/Radius instance controlling access to the network
 by customers and hosted servers.

Tell your security people that as soon as there are cloud systems which
provide L2 environments which support .1x to the client, that you'll
certainly look at them.  But that in the interim, you have a business to run.

As an almost unrelated aside (as this argument seems to be completely
political rather than technical in nature), I'm completely failing to
understand how .1x is relevant to your virtual network security.  Most
environments these days support at least some level of mac address spoofing
control, which is all you really need.  .1x is useful for large campuses
and enterprise environments, but it really isn't relevant at all to virtual
hosting so far as I can see.

Nick

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Re: [c-nsp] Current SP Cloud Security models

2012-03-13 Thread Joe Freeman
That's exactly my argument at the moment, but I thought I'd reach out to minds 
brighter than mine to see if I've missed something somewhere.

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 13, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Nick Hilliard n...@foobar.org wrote:

 On 13/03/2012 12:59, Joe Freeman wrote:
 I'm working on a design for a public cloud offering and the security guys
 are screaming that I need to implement network access control (from what
 they describe, it's 802.1x) in the underlying network as they claim the
 VRF/MPLS/VPLS/vlan model doesn't scale well in a cloud.
 
 There are many scaling issues associated with virtualised environments,
 that's for sure.
 
 That all news to me. I've been doing SP networks for a long time, but have
 never heard of a requirement for the SP to maintain 802.1x across the
 network, with a master AD/Radius instance controlling access to the network
 by customers and hosted servers.
 
 Tell your security people that as soon as there are cloud systems which
 provide L2 environments which support .1x to the client, that you'll
 certainly look at them.  But that in the interim, you have a business to run.
 
 As an almost unrelated aside (as this argument seems to be completely
 political rather than technical in nature), I'm completely failing to
 understand how .1x is relevant to your virtual network security.  Most
 environments these days support at least some level of mac address spoofing
 control, which is all you really need.  .1x is useful for large campuses
 and enterprise environments, but it really isn't relevant at all to virtual
 hosting so far as I can see.
 
 Nick
 

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Re: [c-nsp] Current SP Cloud Security models

2012-03-13 Thread Nick Hilliard
On 13/03/2012 13:16, Joe Freeman wrote:
 That's exactly my argument at the moment, but I thought I'd reach out to
 minds brighter than mine to see if I've missed something somewhere.

Ask them what specific problem they are attempting to solve with 802.1x and
how .1x specifically solves this problem.  If they're intent on hanging
themselves with their own policies, I would not hesitate to hand them some
rope.

Nick

 Sent from my iPhone
 
 On Mar 13, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Nick Hilliard n...@foobar.org wrote:
 
 On 13/03/2012 12:59, Joe Freeman wrote:
 I'm working on a design for a public cloud offering and the security guys
 are screaming that I need to implement network access control (from what
 they describe, it's 802.1x) in the underlying network as they claim the
 VRF/MPLS/VPLS/vlan model doesn't scale well in a cloud.

 There are many scaling issues associated with virtualised environments,
 that's for sure.

 That all news to me. I've been doing SP networks for a long time, but have
 never heard of a requirement for the SP to maintain 802.1x across the
 network, with a master AD/Radius instance controlling access to the network
 by customers and hosted servers.

 Tell your security people that as soon as there are cloud systems which
 provide L2 environments which support .1x to the client, that you'll
 certainly look at them.  But that in the interim, you have a business to run.

 As an almost unrelated aside (as this argument seems to be completely
 political rather than technical in nature), I'm completely failing to
 understand how .1x is relevant to your virtual network security.  Most
 environments these days support at least some level of mac address spoofing
 control, which is all you really need.  .1x is useful for large campuses
 and enterprise environments, but it really isn't relevant at all to virtual
 hosting so far as I can see.

 Nick

 

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