IT Examiner School - Oct 2023

Internal Use Only

IT Architecture

IT architecture design includes determining the appropriate deployment environments. Design environments may be managed in ‐ house or by a third ‐ party service provider, including a cloud service provider. Whether in ‐ house or outsourced, management may use a combination of physical and virtual design environments and should consider the risks and benefits of both. Virtualization Types Risks  Vulnerability Management: Establish processes for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities within containers to maintain security and reliability. 

Virtual machines (VMs): software-based emulations of physical computers. They provide the ability to run multiple independent operating systems and applications on a single physical server or host. Hypervisors: They are software or hardware platforms that enable the creation and management of multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical server or host. Containers: lightweight, portable, and isolated form of virtualization technology used to package and run applications and their dependencies. Microservices: Application that is a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled services.

Segmentation: Employ network and resource segmentation to isolate containers and prevent unintended interactions with applications and host operating systems.  Container Monitoring: Implement monitoring capabilities to continuously observe the behavior of containers and detect any anomalies or security breaches.  Data Storage Design: To avoid data loss during container updates and replacements, design a data storage strategy that keeps data outside of the container, ensuring data persistence and portability.

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Internal Use Only

Cloud Computing

Services are delivered to an institution's computers and devices via the internet. Cloud computing and storage solutions providers allow various capabilities to store and process data in third-party data centers. Cloud is a semi-trusted domain and may requires additional controls such as MFA.

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