Second Annual CSA Congress A Success
Posted by Stuart Lisk on November 22, 2011
What a difference a year makes! The Cloud Security Alliance’s (CSA) second annual congress was held in Orlando, FL November 16th and 17th and even though the event was held at a Disney Resort hotel, it’s not like there was time for fun, games and rides. Upon my arrival in Orlando, the bus driver from the airport was asking the passengers what they plan on doing during the week. Many of the responses included “See Mickey Mouse! See Minnie Mouse!” and so on. For me, it was to attend a conference on cloud security. Oh boy! And who was going to have the most fun, huh!? It always makes me wonder why conferences are held at these resort areas because it seems that no one ever gets a chance to appreciate the amenities that go along with it.
The CSA board spent a lot of time ensuring that this second annual congress improved upon last year’s inaugural seminar which focused on cloud security. A lot was learned about the topics most companies wanted to hear about and focus on. The first day of the conference was highlighted with the announcement that version 3.0 of the CSA Security Guidance had been released and it seeks to establish a stable, secure baseline for cloud operations. This effort provides a practical, actionable road map for managers who want to adopt the cloud paradigm safely and securely. Domains have been rewritten to emphasize security, stability and privacy, ensuring corporate privacy in a multi-tenant environment. In fact, multi-tenant environments related to cloud security was a major emphasis at the conference this year and many of the sessions reflected that focus.
The first day key note was provided by a top executive from EMC who discussed the types of threats we should be aware. It was very informative but the highlight of the speech was realizing that managing cloud security is all about minimizing risk and maintaining constant monitoring of the systems. We are not going to catch vulnerability that occurs, but we should try and cut it off at the pass if one does occur.
There were many interesting sessions including “The Impact of Cloud Computing on IT Operations,” “Aligning Security Goals with Business Objectives in the Cloud,” ”Cryptographic Enforcement of Multi-Tenancy in Cloud Environments” and many others. There was a session for just about everyone. Perhaps the favorite session of the congress was given on Day 2 by Christopher Hoff, a founding member of CSA, a take-off of the famous George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say On TV” comedy routine.
This year’s conference had more end user customers than last year. About two-thirds of the attendees were from enterprises in private and public industries. Clearly, based on an informal poll held at the conference, more companies implemented some level of cloud computing in 2011 than years past. In fact, other companies are expecting to implement or expand their cloud computing applications over the next 12 months.
In order for this conference to continue to thrive in the future however, it is going to need to differentiate itself from the other cloud or data security shows held throughout the year. One way to do that is to focus more on the CSA specific guidance and work groups it publishes. The topics would be relevant and useful and would distinguish it from the other conferences.
There definitely seemed to be more emphasis on securing a multi-tenant cloud environment as well as more companies testing the water with specific projects that move applications and processes to the cloud. I suspect we will see more of that next year which would make a conference such as the CSA Congress even more relevant and important.
On the way back to the airport, the driver asked everyone if they had fun at Space Mountain, Epcot, Universal Studios, and other Disney attractions, but he didn’t ask those of us there on business whether we had fun at the conference. I don’t know about fun, but it certainly was an informative and eventful conference.
Tags: B2B Integration, Cloud Computing, Cloud Security Alliance, CSA
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