Suse expands cloud native Kubernetes offerings

Suse, a cloud-native security provider, today announces the launch of two of its acquired platforms — container security solution NeuVector and open-source container management platform Rancher. The launch, according to the company, advances its ambition of providing a fully integrated cloud-native platform that allows users to design, deploy and easily secure Kubernetes applications while also accelerating their digital transformation.

Today, companies that require a lot of computing and storage are moving to cloud infrastructures. Companies that require increased security are increasingly altering their infrastructures to become cloud-native. This, according to Fei Huang, vice president of security strategy at Suse, has made security to be a crucial necessity for both users and companies using cloud-native workloads.

NeuVector 5.0 is a Kubernetes-specific end-to-end security solution that enables enterprises to quickly install security in cloud-native environments. NeuVector is focused on minimizing the technical expertise and time required to develop and maintain a secure infrastructure, whether it’s securing a single Kubernetes cluster or deploying security to hundreds of clusters.

The drawback of devops is that the rapid speed it encourages ignores security. The answer is to integrate security protocols and procedures across the devops process. NeuVector can now be used to add security checks to the devops pipeline, manage vulnerability scans and compliance checks, add admission control policies for staging or production deployment, implement zero-trust security controls and prohibit malicious behavior in real-time.

Container security with NeuVector 5.0

During the forecast period of 2021 to 2026, the Container Security Market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 27%.  A significant number of open-source suppliers are now delivering container platforms due to the significant increase in cyberattacks and vulnerabilities. Vulnerability management, compliance auditing, event monitoring and post-analysis are all provided by such container platforms, as well as run-time security via unique network visibility and protection that can prevent any suspicious application behavior.

NeuVector 5.0 is an open-source cloud-native security platform. It is the first product release of NeuVector as part of Suse since its acquisition. The company claims that NeuVector will deliver open-source solutions to customers, as well as improve NeuVector’s zero-trust controls with security functionalities.

Greg Muscarella, general manager of enterprise container management at Suse, said the company’s biggest competitors are really enterprises that don’t deploy a security solution for their Kubernetes environment. “[We] bring together the full lifecycle solution for containers from vulnerability scanning to runtime security to audits that is deployable anywhere Kubernetes runs,” said Muscarella.

Smart cloud solutions that employ and leverage intelligence to build containers are becoming more widely adopted. Not only will the intelligence construct the container, but it will also apply security, compliance and other applicable controls and manage the container’s state. NeuVector 5.0 says it introduces a number of important new features aimed at simplifying and automating security safeguards in a production setting. One example is its zero-drift security function, which provides another layer of intelligent protection by recognizing and halting rogue processes and harmful executables.

Web application firewall (WAF) with adjustable sensors is also included in NeuVector 5.0, which may be modified to apply WAF policies to running containers, namespaces, or specified service groups, according to the company. It also contains security and data loss prevention (DLP) policies written in code to assist WAF. Additionally, its protection mode auto-switch will fully automate behavior learning to protection.

Hybrid platform for Kubernetes

Suse’s commitment to introducing new security capabilities to the Kubernetes container ecosystem continues with the introduction of NeuVector 5.0, which focuses on automating security operations to decrease the complexity of security measures.

Suse NeuVector 5.0 works with Suse Rancher and may be deployed, managed and upgraded using any container management platform, such as Amazon EKS, IBM IKS, Microsoft AKS, Google GKE, or vanilla Kubernetes. According to the company, the Rancher connection allows customers to manage security directly through the company’s container management platform.

Rancher users may now access and operate NeuVector directly from the Suse Rancher console as part of the Suse Rancher 2.6.5 release. This gives the globally distributed Kubernetes settings the benefit of a zero-trust stack, which simplifies security administration. Rancher, according to the company, enables customers to confidently deploy their apps on Kubernetes, assisting operators in providing enterprise-critical applications with an improved cloud-native security approach.

“As container security issues grow, our customers can rely on Suse to provide a complete solution that improves security throughout the Kubernetes lifecycle,” said Muscarella. He added that Suse NeuVector will help organizations to increase their security against emerging cyber threats in any location without compromising developer agility and innovation, since it builds on the tradition of Suse Linux Enterprise and integrates effortlessly with Suse Rancher.

Suse says it plans to continue developing and expanding zero-trust controls to assist customers in migrating to a more proactive security approach. “We’re committed to expanding our ideas and platform integrations, including Rancher. We’re also committed to being open, which includes joining open-source communities, learning from them, sharing what we’ve learned and helping to make the cloud a safer place to collaborate,” Muscarella said.