Microsoft Azure Security Center
One simple solution for all the enterprises looking for active security of their data and infrastructure is the Microsoft Azure Security Center. It aims at facilitating advanced security automation and auditable documentation in a unified infrastructure security management system. Not only will it improve the security status of data centers but will also provide exceptional threat protection.
The Architecture of Azure Security Center
Azure Security Center ensures the security of your cloud workloads and provides monitoring and protection for PaaS services. The services like storage accounts, SQL databases, and service fabric are secured without deployment. Moreover, Azure virtual machines are auto-provisioned by the security center.
Apart from Azure, the security center also protects other servers and virtual machines whether on-premises or in the cloud. By installing a Log Analytics agent, both Windows and Linux server environments can be protected by Azure Security Center.
Next, we have the security analytics engine which happens to be the highlight in Azure security center architecture. The security analytics engine is responsible for correlating events collected from Azure and other agents on the basis of which reliable recommendations for strengthening the security systems are provided.
Azure Security Center architecture is highly dependent on the inbuilt security policy that is assigned automatically to all the registered securities at the subscriptions.
Working of Azure Security Center
As a result of security center activation, the monitoring agents are automatically deployed to Azure virtual machines. However, the deployments need to be done manually in the case of on-premise virtual machines. Followed by deployments, the security status of all your applications, data, network, and virtual machines is assessed by the security center. Therefore, Azure Security Center can easily identify any threat or anomalous activity from your database and virtual machines.
Advantages of Azure Security Center
Azure Security Center has a number of notable advantages that you can leverage by adopting Azure security center:
- The scope of security status management and threat protection gets extended for the on-premises virtual machines.
- Security can be easily assessed through the facility of a unified view of different hybrid cloud workloads.
- Investments and re-allocation of resources can be reduced by leveraging inbuilt third party security controls.
- Any agent can be easily provisioned to on-premises server workloads and processes like security information and event management can be connected with existing tools.
Best Practices for Azure Security Center
To make the best out of Azure security center, it is important to follow the best practices. Following these practices, the security Centre functionalities can be optimally applied as per the security requirements.
To begin with, the user needs to have a keen knowledge of the Shared Responsibility Model of Azure. It is the distribution of responsibilities of cloud security between the user and Microsoft which clearly states what is supposed to be done by whom. For instance, achieving proper Migration of business to the cloud needs assistance from both the enterprise as well as Microsoft.
Another prominent practice is addressing identity-related security concerns through Azure active directory. With the rising adoption of cloud services, securing identity has become an issue for a lot of enterprises. Such issues can be solved by centralizing identity into a single authoritative source like Azure active directory connect can be used for integrating cloud directories.
