IBM and Intel Bring New Security Features to the Cloud
IBM's SoftLayer will be the first cloud platform to offer its customers bare metal servers powered by Intel Cloud Technology that provides monitoring and security down to the microchip level.
Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT) provides hardware monitoring and security controls that help assure businesses that a workload from a known location on SoftLayer infrastructure is running on trusted hardware. This assurance provides even compliance certification for organizations moving sensitive and mission-critical operations to the cloud.
Intel TXT helps ensure that trusted resources can be integrated, managed and reported on with the relevant compliance frameworks (HIPAA, PCI, FedRAMP, ISO, FISMA, SSAE16). With IBM Cloud and SoftLayer infrastructure, these organizations will be able to certify a cloud computing pool is appropriately secured for workloads with exposures such as governance and enterprise risk, information and life-cycle management, compliance and audit, application security, identity and access management and incident response.
Intel TXT verifies the components of a computing system from its operating system or hypervisor all the way to its boot firmware and hardware. Combined with attestation (root of trust software) this verification is then used to permit or deny a workload from running on that select server system. Hybrid cloud solutions can leverage partner software and Intel TXT, to limit data decryption to specific geo-located servers, in support of local data privacy laws. And because Intel TXT is activated during boot up, this added security does not add any performance overhead to applications.
To use Intel TXT, SoftLayer customers need only order bare metal servers available with a Trusted Platform module (TPM) installed. Once activated and deployed with attestation software Intel TXT allows clients to build trusted computing pools of IT resources in the cloud with an added level of visibility and control. Designed to measure the execution environment and protect sensitive information from software-based attacks Intel TXT operates with TPM, an industry-standard device that can securely store the measurement artifacts, to verify the integrity of the hardware, firmware and software.
Softlayer is a member of the Intel Cloud Technology program which identifies CSPs using Intel processors for reliable industry-leading performance and quality. Intel TXT is available today on SoftLayer bare metal servers with the following Intel processors:
Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2
Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3
Intel Xeon E5-4600
IBM says more SoftLayer bare metal server configurations will be available with the technology in the future.
Intel TXT helps ensure that trusted resources can be integrated, managed and reported on with the relevant compliance frameworks (HIPAA, PCI, FedRAMP, ISO, FISMA, SSAE16). With IBM Cloud and SoftLayer infrastructure, these organizations will be able to certify a cloud computing pool is appropriately secured for workloads with exposures such as governance and enterprise risk, information and life-cycle management, compliance and audit, application security, identity and access management and incident response.
Intel TXT verifies the components of a computing system from its operating system or hypervisor all the way to its boot firmware and hardware. Combined with attestation (root of trust software) this verification is then used to permit or deny a workload from running on that select server system. Hybrid cloud solutions can leverage partner software and Intel TXT, to limit data decryption to specific geo-located servers, in support of local data privacy laws. And because Intel TXT is activated during boot up, this added security does not add any performance overhead to applications.
To use Intel TXT, SoftLayer customers need only order bare metal servers available with a Trusted Platform module (TPM) installed. Once activated and deployed with attestation software Intel TXT allows clients to build trusted computing pools of IT resources in the cloud with an added level of visibility and control. Designed to measure the execution environment and protect sensitive information from software-based attacks Intel TXT operates with TPM, an industry-standard device that can securely store the measurement artifacts, to verify the integrity of the hardware, firmware and software.
Softlayer is a member of the Intel Cloud Technology program which identifies CSPs using Intel processors for reliable industry-leading performance and quality. Intel TXT is available today on SoftLayer bare metal servers with the following Intel processors:
Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2
Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3
Intel Xeon E5-4600
IBM says more SoftLayer bare metal server configurations will be available with the technology in the future.
