The client end of Cloud infrastructure is starting to look like it will play a major part in the development of not only services but also what might be called the `service ethos’ that is required for Cloud-based businesses to really succeed.
One of the important developments needed at the cloud-client end is the need to make the choice of device as open and flexible as possible. Most users still, of course, use a PC as their primary interface to cloud services, though it is widely expected that developments in the mobile phone arena will become dominant, especially for consumer users.
But even here, many users will want to – or will have a need to - use both, particularly if the systems are being used for work. The problem is that `flexibility’ in one direction will likely create problems in another – carrying around lots of kit.
One solution to this problem has been developed by London-based encryption tools specialist BeCrypt, in the form of its Trusted Client USB `dongle’. This carries all the code necessary to turn a PC into a fully encrypted client whether it is working on a company network within the firewall, or out in the world and accessing a company system over the Internet.
Based on Flash technology, the user simply plugs in the `dongle’ and reboots to create a protected and encrypted system that is a secure extension of a business environment out to wherever the user happens to be. Once connected, all secured activity takes place on the corporate servers, not the user’s laptop.
The current obvious target is the corporate marketplace where executives are travelling yet needing to be fully connected to the corporate system whenever they need to be. Such people travel with laptops and all the accoutrements of the `road warrior’, but the implications of the process are wider. For a start, while the device secures the user’s own laptop (and frees it for other, personal use as well), it can also secure any other system into which it is plugged. So the option of not taking a PC on business trips starts to open up.
In fact, turning that thought round leads to the notion that a device of this type could be the tool that many cloud services – and their users - could readily exploit. It could work equally well for both consumer and business users. In an ideal environment, the users would need little else but their USB client device, and could make use of any client system that was available – be that a kiosk or an installed system in a hotel (the swankier ones are already starting to equip rooms with connected PCs or Apple Macs).
As an example of the service implications BeCrypt’s CEO, Bernard Parsons, pointed to a US customer win in the insurance business. “The customer is using our PC-based encryption tools but the fundamental process is the same,” he said. “Here the service allows the insurance company’s agents to boot up into a fully compliant environment that is managed by the insurance company from its own servers. The agents do not need to know that they are in a compliant environment nor should they have to care about ensuring that they are. They can just get on with selling insurance services and running their businesses. But ensuring compliance becomes part of the service both to them and their customers.”
Parsons is already aware of the potential the Trusted Client approach could deliver to a wide variety of customers via such an assured service, particularly those that are users of SaaS-based services. “We are already having discussions with a number of service providers,” he said, “and we see our role as playing a core part in much bigger solutions.”
To this end the company already has partnerships with IronKey, where it is adding its encryption technology to IronKey’s secure Flash USB drive devices, and with SafeNet, which offers secure software licence management in a USB dongle format. The company is also working with Trusted Computer Solutions, which provides cross-domain information security. Here, BeCrypt is working to provide graded levels of security in virtualized server environments.
But there is certainly also scope to extend this model with SaaS providers. It would be relatively simple for dongles to be an integral part of any service offered, allowing users to work with any available client to log in securely to a SaaS service.
Parsons is also seeing a big push towards open standards. “This is becoming much more important to the Public Services marketplace, particularly in the development of standards for key management,” he said.
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