A brief introduction about the security on Windows Azure, Microsoft public cloud solution for the platform and the infrastructure.

2. Security on Microsoft Cloud
Solutions
Haddy El-Haggan
Microsoft Student Partner
Founder of Azure Community in Egypt

3. Security on Microsoft Cloud
Solutions
• Overview on Windows Azure
• Security Overview
• Data Security on Windows Azure
• Network Security
• Identity On Azure

4. Windows Azure
• Cloud Computing is a new Concept of the Best
utilization of the Data Center
• Cloud Computing is based on Virtualization
• Cloud Computing is mainly composed of 3
layers
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Platform as a Service (Paas)
• Software as a Service (SaaS

5. Windows Azure (cont.)
• Windows Azure is Microsoft Cloud Solutions
• Windows Azure is composed of 3 main Nodes:
– Compute
– Storage (Windows Azure Storage, AppFabrics
Caching and SQL Azure)
– Fabrics (to enable communication between
different applications hosted on Azure or even on
premises)

6. Benefits
• High Availability
• High Scalability
• Pay as you go
• Best utilization of the hardware resources
available
• Focus on your business rather than the IT
infrastructure
• Flexibility to access your data

7. ONE OF THE BIGGEST CONCERN IS
ALWAYS ABOUT THE SECURITY AND
HOW ARE MY DATA SECURE ON THE
CLOUD?

8. Platform
(as a Service)
Managedbyvendor
Youmanage
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Applications
Runtime
Data

9. Microsoft Cloud Solution Security
Overview
• Developers and users must know the
responsibilities the share with the Cloud
Provider
• These are the main layers of security for any
Cloud Provider:
– Human
– Data
– Application
– Host
– Network
– Physical

10. Microsoft Cloud Solution Security
Overview (Cont.)
• The “human” and “Data” layers are the users’
responsibility and how they manage their data
and its permissions (more information about the
data n Azure to be followed)
• The “Application Layer” depend on the developer
and the security used on it
• Authentication
• Input validation ….
• Recommend to develop using SDL (security
development lifecycle) designed for windows
Vista, Windows 7 and windows Azure

13. Microsoft Cloud Solution Security
Overview
• “Host” Layer, Windows Azure is hosted on
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
• Windows Azure doesn’t depend on Windows
Server 2008 hypervisor , it has its own
hypervisor where the roles and the VM are
hosted and isolated
• Host has 2 main jobs:
– Isolation (every role runs on its own VM)
– Hardening (regular Security Updates)

14. Microsoft Cloud Solution Security
Overview
• Some Firewall can be configured by the
service owner and some are controlled by the
fabric controller
• “Network” Layer, Windows Azure traffic
through several firewall
• Guest VM
• Host VM
• SQL Azure VM

16. THERE IS NO ENCRYPTION ON
WINDOWS AZURE

17. Data Security on Azure
• Windows Azure Compute and Windows Azure Storage are 2
different things each of them is hosted on different hardware
resources
• In the Storage Architecture the top layer
validates, authenticates, and authorizes requests, routing them to
the partition layer and data layer where the data exists
• Protect against Data Loss, there are always three replicates of your
data whatever happens
• Isolation: all your data are isolated from the others by 2 ways:
– Logically
– Physically
• Each type of storage has its own way of access depending on the
developer
• NO DATA ARE ACCESSIBLE BY THE PUBLIC EXCEPT THE PUBLIC BLOB

18. Data Security on Azure
• Isolation: all your data are isolated from the
others by 2 ways:
– Logically
– Physically
• Each type of storage has its own way of access
depending on the developer
• NO DATA ARE ACCESSIBLE BY THE PUBLIC
EXCEPT THE PUBLIC BLOB

19. Secure Networking
• Network Architecture:
– In Azure there are mainly 4 types of Nodes:
• Fabric Controller Node (Azure Kernel)
• Storage Node
• Compute Node
• Other infrastructure Node
– In the FC Networking there are 3 types of isolated
networks:
• Main VLAN (all untrusted customer nodes)
• FC VLAN (trusted FC networks)
• Device VLAN (contains trusted networks an other
infrastructure devices)

20. Secure Networking
• No communication is possible between the
VLANs without passing through a router for
preventing faking traffic and eavesdropping on
other traffic
• The communication is permitted from the FC
VLAN or the Device VLAN to the main VLAN
but not initiated from the main VLAN

21. Secure Networking
• Azure has the largest internet connections in the
industry
• It is unlikely that someone can cut azure out of
public by producing enough malicious traffic
• If your application on azure is attacked, azure will
create several compute instances to maintain
your application until the attack passes
• Microsoft is considering ways to identify
malicious traffic and block it as it enters the Azure
Fabric, but this sort of protection has not yet
been deployed.

22. Identity On Azure
• To gain access to your application on the Cloud you
have to pass few steps:
– Authentication
– Authorization
– Monitoring and logging (track users and log their
operations)
• Windows Azure support several identity technology
– Active Directory
– Open ID
– SQL Server
– WIF

23. Identity On Azure
• Windows Azure supports 2 types of identity in
the Cloud:
– Role based
– Claim Based
• Role based is using Username and password
• Claim based is using Token containing a
collection of Claims

24. Identity On Azure: Role based
authorization
• It can be used by SQL Azure, Azure Connect
andASP.NET membership provider
• You only use the username and the password
and the rest are kept in the identity store
• Simple, easy to use and possible to implement
Domain join

25. Identity on Azure: Azure Connect
• Azure connect support domain join of
windows azure roles to on premises Active
Directory

26. Identity on Azure : Claim Based
• Claim is a piece of information
• Token is a collection of Claims and are signed
• Security Token Service map the credentials to the
token
• Application is provide with all the identity
information needed
• The management of the identity is not the
application responsibility
• Integration between several identity providers
• Less infrastructure code

28. Identity On Azure: AppFabric
Access Control
• Enable the developer of using claim based
authorization from enterprises like active
directory, SQL Server
• Also enable the usage of the other identity
provider like live ID, Facebook, Google and
Yahoo.

29. Azure Community in Egypt
• Twitter: Azurecomeg
• E-Mail: azureeg@hotmail.com

30. Contacts
• Twitter: @Hhaggan
• Email: h.haggan@hotmail.com
• Blog: http://hhaggan.wordpress.com/