IBM Cloud: Considerations for role and resource setup

Solution architecture

Here is a quick follow-up on my recent blog on best practices for the cloud onboarding of enterprise projects. There, I discussed how to use Terraform scripts as blueprint in the onboarding process. Starting with a corporate standard for setting up roles and other security objects, project-specific layers are added later on. The IBM Cloud solution tutorial on applying end to end security to a cloud application served as example. In this blog, I am going to share details on how I mapped project resources to roles.

Terraform: Best practices for the cloud onboarding of enterprise projects

Architecture: End to end security

When onboarding a new project — either on-prem or to a cloud environment — there should be no questions on how to get started. Onboarding should follow an enterprise-defined process based on (internal) standards. It needs to detail access roles and privileges and provide means to implement them.

Recently, in an IBM Cloud blog, I discussed such a project onboarding. Terraform scripts implement the rules as code — they help to automate roll-out and tear down access roles and privileges. The scenario from the solution tutorial "Apply end-to-end security to a cloud application" serves as specific example to proof-point the ideas.

Head over to IBM Cloud and read my blog on "Blueprinting the Onboarding of Cloud Projects Using Terraform".

Details available: IDUG EMEA 2020 as virtual conference

In August I already mentioned that the Db2 conference IDUG EMEA 2020 goes virtual. Now, the details are available, including the agenda - so-called virtual grid. The virtual conference will offer three tracks. One is for Db2 for z/OS, one for Db2 (LUW), and one track is dedicated to application development topics. Pricing is similar to the Db2 North America conference with $199 for a regular ticket and $99 if you are IDUG premium member. So, with no further ado, head over to the IDUG website, check out the agenda and register. I hope to see you in November.

BTW: I recently participated in another virtual conference. The organizers sent out some goodies ahead of the conference, including yummy cookies.

Use alfaview on rpm-based Linux (Fedora, Red Hat, CentOs)

Recently, I tried to prepare for an alfaview session. alfaview is a video conferencing system and used by the university where I teach data security. Only earlier this year alfaview introduced Linux support, and only for Debian-based systems. My system is rpm-based (Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Fedora / CentOS), so what to do? A tool like alien did not work for me. Here is what I did to make alfaview run on my rpm-based Linux system.