The advent of cloud computing has made geography virtually meaningless as it means we can store and access data from anywhere. But this doesn’t solve the problem of data security policies that require the enforcement of physical boundaries, a challenge that HyTrust Inc., and Intel Corp., are hoping to overcome with an initiative that’s focused on securing apps and data in the cloud.

The solution is something called HyTrust Boundary Controls (PDF), which allows enterprises to “set policies for virtualized applications and data to enforce that they only run on a proven and trusted host that is physically located within defined parameters,” according to HyTrust. Such a measure should significantly reduce the threat of data being stolen or misused, or any regulatory compliance violations, the companies claim.

“The inherent portability that enables virtualization means companies lose control of how their data can be run and where it can go. Risk becomes concentrated,” explained Eric Chiu, President of HyTrust, in an interview with V3.

Key to solving this conundrum is being able to set data access policies based on geographical location. This will help organizations deal with the increasingly complicated data-sovereignty and privacy policies thrown in their way by different political jurisdictions, while allowing them to keep specific data sets within the most advantageous physical location.

Aside from geographical boundaries, HyTrust says its solution will help organizations to manage the types of hardware on which their cloud data and virtual apps are run.

“Many organizations segment data based on classification or level of confidentiality,” said HyTrust. “For example, some security levels allow IT to ensure that PCI data only runs on virtual infrastructure classified for PCI, or that Mission A’s data is kept separate from Mission B’s. HyTrust Boundary Controls permits administrators to make their own choices based on business and compliance needs.”

As for Intel, it’s contribution is providing the low-level HyTrust needs to build its software. HyTrust Boundary Controls will run on Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology, allowing it to validate what type of hardware, BIOS and hypervisor an app or virtual machine is running on at the processor level.

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