A Google Cloud Landing Zone is the foundational framework of your Google Cloud environment. This configured environment aims to standardize your cloud infrastructure — providing a baseline for resource organization, policy management, identity and access control, and more.
Landing zones are a rather universal concept of multi-account architecture (used in Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, etc.) and serve as a blueprint for your cloud environment. They create an effective operational and governance model to drive your adoption strategy, determine how your team will collaborate, and ensure security and control as you grow.
Why Do Companies Starting on Google Cloud Need a Landing Zone?
Public cloud adoption is now the standard. According to Right Scale’s annual 2019 State of the Cloud Report, 91% of businesses have used public cloud providers. At this stage in public cloud’s maturity, many companies have not only adopted cloud, but have experienced insecure starts. Whether from a lack of appropriate controls, misconfigurations within their environment, or “DIY-driven” instances of Shadow IT — cloud chaos is an all too familiar feeling for many.
While entrusting your data to an outside party may feel daunting at first, the truth is the biggest security threats come from within an organization. In fact, 68 percent of the organizations surveyed in Cybersecurity Insiders’ 2020 Cloud Security report felt the biggest security threat was their cloud platform’s configuration or setup. Unauthorized access came in second at 58 percent, followed by insecure interfaces/APIs at 52 percent. It’s these vulnerabilities in particular that have opened the door to attacks like DDoS and ransomware.
Time and again, public cloud providers like Google Cloud have proven they have the largest and most secure networks. If you’re about to take flight in Google Cloud, ensuring a strategic, security-focused path is essential. A best practice-embedded Google Cloud Landing Zone can help your development team prepare for a safe and smooth landing.
Elements of a Landing Zone
Your Google Cloud landing zone will encompass organization structure, IAM (Identity and Access Management), user authentication, bucket policies, security architecture, SCC (Security Command Center) utilization and other security perimeters, VPC configurations, firewall implementation, Google Cloud security services configuration, and data residency initiatives.
The goal of each element is to ensure scalability of your security and access protocols. Ensuring baked-in compliance at every step will provide a streamlined path for ongoing management of your environment.
As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Cloudbakers | Qwinix, our Secure Landing Zone Setup for Google Cloud lean on the best practices within Google Cloud’s Architecture Framework. This framework was developed by seasoned Google Cloud engineers as a guide for secure development and deployment of your environment. The framework spans the gamut of a best practice environment — from cost optimization to operational efficiency and everything in between.
By leveraging the best practices within the framework, your organization can move beyond reactive security protocols and develop a proactive security posture to carry your team through your Google Cloud journey.
The Lasting Benefits of Google Cloud Landing Zone
Proper setup and implementation of Google Cloud best practices will provide a robust and long-lasting cloud infrastructure. It’ll be more secure, easier to manage, cost-efficient, and scalable.
Centralized resource management provided as part of a Google Cloud Landing Zone setup will also enable more visibility and controlled access so that each infrastructure change can be properly tracked and authorized.
Google Cloud Landing Zone aforementioned risks by enacting security policies and controls based on several key benchmarks and compliance frameworks.
Configuring your Google Cloud Landing Zone will help you save time and money by implementing an initial security baseline based on your infrastructure and Google Cloud best practices. Once you lay the groundwork, you’ll have a solid, fully configured environment for running secure and scalable workloads.
Touchdown with Google Cloud Secure Landing Zone Setup
If moving to the cloud with your infrastructure and development team in tow is like landing a plane, think of us as your air traffic control tower. Cloudbakers | Qwinix Secure Landing Zone Setup for Google Cloud can help you start your cloud journey with confidence.
The offering includes:
- Tenancy structure based on your business requirements
- Naming and labeling strategy
- Centralized identity and access management (IAM)
- Secure network design and centralized network controls
- Organization policy enforcements based on workloads
- Secured infrastructure as code pipeline using terraform for centralized resource management
- Policy as code enforcements with predefined policies as per the benchmarks and compliance frameworks like CIS and PCI to counter cloud misconfigurations
- Google Cloud Security Command Center configuration for active and ongoing monitoring for threats and vulnerabilities
- Centralized audit logs
Additionally, each Secure Landing Zone Setup includes team security training for Google Cloud. We believe accountable, informed, and empowered teams are the single biggest asset in protecting your environment. Our cloud educators work with your team to bring them up-to-speed on navigating their newly-configured environment. It’s an essential part of our holistic approach to cloud security.
The Cloudbakers | Qwinix team was awarded the Google Cloud Onboarding Expertise. Partners who’ve earned this award have demonstrated consistent customer success in line with Google Cloud best practices and recommendations.
Talk to one of our Google Cloud experts about Securing Landing Zone Setup for Google Cloud today. With support and guidance at every step of the way, we can get you up and running in as little as four-plus weeks. This service includes Cloud Landing Zone design and implementation, plus team training on Google Cloud.
