The cloud computing market is young and third-party services are emerging to help set benchmarks for services such as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. The Cloud Security Alliance and CloudAudit are two organizations that have taken the responsibility to provide users with information to help in their adoption of cloud computing.
These organizations are important as they provide ways for companies to use standard measures to judge a cloud computing company.
But they are only part of the equation. As the need grows for better scrutiny, services like EnStratus. are emerging to provide comprehensive governance over cloud computing infrastructures.
EnStratus is a cloud management service that provides comprehensive audits of cloud computing providers. Cloud providers it covers includes: Amazon Web Services; Cloud.com; Eucalyptus; Google; GoGrid; OpenStack; Rackspace; ReliaCloud, Terremark; VMware and Windows Azure.
EnStratus fits in the same space as companies such as Opscode and Puppet Labs, which provide configuration services.
This week, the company announced a new set of financial controls. Customers may now track cloud spending across multiple accounts across its cloud environments. It can provide audit down to the resource level. It associates cloud resources with distinct cloud budgets.
The service works across multiple currencies, allowing customers to do clouds billing in any number of different currencies.
EnStratus provides a range of services. It alerts customers when their service is down. It encrypts the customer’s cloud environment. Only managers with access to digital keys can access the cloud environment. The keys are stored outside the cloud environment to guarantee a level of security so only those with permissions can access the cloud infrastructure.
The service manages virtual machine sprawl. It will help companies define how much each department is using the virtualized environment. That means departments get billed for usage not for the cost of the server.
EnStratus supports the Cloud Security Alliance and CloudAudit. The support of these services provide another framework for governance. EnStratus is also one of the original supporters of OpenStack.
Any company serious about cloud computing needs to have an understanding of the roles played by CloudAudit and the Cloud Security Alliance. Over the next few years, companies will need to manage multiple cloud environments. The monitoring of those services will be critical as these cloud computing architectures become more complex.
That will open opportunities for companies like EnStratus, which will play an important role as customers become more deeply invested in cloud computing.
