Configuration Drift Management Tool | Detection

What is a Cloud Configuration Drift?

You use several platforms, tools, applications which all have "configurations" as part of their day to day operations. You take a lot of pain to fine-tune the right settings. Over a period of time, these settings start to change for several valid reasons. Either it could be a hot-fix, vendor deprecations, process violations - resulting into changes to the desired configuration. Also, it can be a result of manual change or by various automated processes. This is Configuration Drift, where you believe your desired configurations are in place but that's not the case. The impact can be great if left undetected and unmanaged.

Causes of Cloud Misconfigurations and Drift

Common Cloud mistakes you need to avoid

Untimely or failed communication

Changes, whether intentional or unintentional, maybe even well-planned changes in highly complex systems, can cause drifts. All involved parties in the integrated environment must be informed during the planning stage to avoid configuration drifts. (During the planning stage, all involved parties must be reported to prevent configuration drifts.)

Need of the moment Hotfixes

At times, code changes cannot wait for a planned release and need to be made immediately. Failure to document these changes can lead to unplanned downtime in the production environment later. This situation is a perfect breeding ground for configuration drifts.

Automation deficiency

CI/CD pipelines usually have built-in checks for errors. However, you will have many more errors to deal with without automation. Automation with the help of Configuration Drift Management Tool can detect and even stop configuration drifts before they become a problem.

Elevated permissions

Sometimes, developers are granted elevated permissions to troubleshoot problems. We all have been in situations where "something needs to be quickly" and permissions were granted temporarily. But then those permissions were never revoked. There's how IAM Drift or Privilege Identities born building the foundation for a future mishap.

Cloud + Drift + Complexity

Drift is not necessarily bad but it can have serious consequences. As your technology footprint grows, so will your Drift. Knowing what was the value of a particular setting few months back is crucial when it comes to debugging, compliance or designing something new! At Cloudanix, we understand this and have built our Drift Management recipe to help you and your business manage this with ease.

Cloudanix Configuration Drift Management

Drift can occur in many places, such as Infrastructure, Network, Container Orchestration, Application runtime etc. Without Configuration Drift Tools, it is hard to detect a drift until something catastrophic like downtime, incident or a breach takes place. Cloudanix's Misconfiguration and Drift Management takes the guess work out and ensures that any change which doesn't match with the Baseline is notified immediately. Infact, as a user, you don't have to take any effort to build Baselines or any further configurations. We do that for you when you connect your Cloud accounts.

FAQ

Your questions around Cloud Misconfigurations and Drift answered.

What is Cloud Drift?

Any inconsistency or gap between the Product Development Life cycle and deployment to the Cloud can be called a cloud drift.

Can Drift be good?

It is very convenient to imagine that all drift is bad drift. Most drifts are bad, but there is some desirable and good drift. Knowing the difference and recognizing good from bad is essential. This can save a lot of sleepless nights and frustration for your team.

When do I need a Drift Management Tool?

Whether big or small, cloud infrastructure, drift detection, and correction should be practiced. Practicing these early will save you a lot of time and frustration in the future.

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