Gartner Research

Implementing Governance for Public Cloud IaaS

Published: 25 January 2019

ID: G00365711

Analyst(s): Richard Watson, Marco Meinardi

Summary

Organizations are embracing public cloud IaaS for on-demand capacity, self-service and automation, but these benefits introduce new governance challenges. This document provides technical professionals with guidance on the policies and tools to achieve IaaS governance.

Table Of Contents

Problem Statement

The Gartner Approach

The Guidance Framework

  • Prework
    • Align Governance to Your Organization’s Cloud Strategy
    • Form Your Governance Team
    • Describe Your Cloud Governance Principles
    • Align Your Organization on Terminology
  • Step 1: Define Policies
    • Step 1.1: Define Your Goals for Cloud Governance Policies
    • Step 1.2: Write Your Policies and Assign Into Gartner’s Cloud Management Platform Categories
    • Step 1.3: Make People Responsible and Make Decisions That Impact Policies
    • Step 1.4: Define Policy Exception Strategy
  • Step 2: Implement Preventative Controls
    • Step 2.1: Identify Policies for Which You Can Implement Preventative Controls
    • Step 2.2: Configure Policies in Cloud Provider’s Native Tools
    • Step 2.3: Define User Account Creation Workflow
    • Step 2.4: Automate Account Creation Workflow and Attach Policies
  • Step 3: Gain Total Visibility
    • Step 3.1: Enable and Lock Down Logging for All Cloud Resources
  • Step 4: Create an Audit Process to Implement Retrospective Controls
    • Step 4.1: Establish Continuous Automated Audit
    • Step 4.2: Map Remaining Policies to Tools That Can Automate Policy Checks and Enforcement
    • Step 4.3: Define Remediation Outcomes
    • Step 4.4: Implement Automated Remediation Workflow
  • Step 5: Implement Tooling Integration Strategy
    • Step 5.1: Integrate Data Repositories
    • Step 5.2: Federate Identity and Enable SSO
  • Follow-Up

Risks and Pitfalls

  • Related Guidance

Gartner Recommended Reading

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