Mark Anderson, an associate principal solutions architect at Red Hat, said government agencies looking to manage and ensure the security of hybrid cloud environments should implement an everything-as-code approach and automation.
In an article published in Carahsoft.com, Anderson wrote that the everything-as-code approach “means thinking about how to approach operations in a way in which everything is configuration controlled, written down and executed as code without exception.”
He discussed how the approach could help agencies log changes to operations, compare against previous versions and improve internal collaboration.
Anderson cited how automation tools like Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could enable agencies to deploy patches, configure systems, orchestrate advanced workflows, track cyberthreats and vulnerabilities, field software and reduce the risk of insider threats by establishing proxy accounts.
“Those proxy accounts allow organizations to add parameters around who has access to these systems and to track and maintain a log of who has scheduled and run updates. The latter capability can be vital when doing a root cause analysis of a security incident to provide necessary information for auditing purposes,” the Red Hat executive added.
Anderson, an experienced leader in enterprise systems development, data architecture and consulting, highlighted the importance of automation and how it allows agencies to advance reuse and knowledge sharing and reduce the burden on the operations team.
He also mentioned how Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could help agencies facilitate collaboration among their DevSecOps teams.
