Within technology, the balance between being security, flexibility and speed for business needs is constantly juggled. And within cloud technologies, the challenge remains front and center. So how does a large company like IBM solve these kinds of issues?

“When we say cloud and security, it’s about the things that we implement as a cloud provider and the services that we stand up,” said Hillery Hunter (pictured), vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Cloud and IBM fellow. “So, actually, when delivered as cloud services, security functions can actually even go more quickly and can facilitate that speed and agility in and of themselves.”

Hunter spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. They discussed security and compliance issues within the cloud setting. (* Disclosure below.)

Building security into the core of IBM Cloud’s services

IBM Cloud is helping all types of organizations realize that security measures in the cloud are fast and effective, according to Hunter. To do so, it leverages cloud technology as an API-driven service in order to do key management and data encryption.

“You can say, ‘OK, what’s the objective we’re trying to get to? What is the net security compliance posture?'” Hunter said. “And we as a cloud provider can be proactive in telling you … ‘Use this combination of services and use them in this following way, and that will enable you to reach those outcomes.’ And so moving … to it being prescriptive and proactive and goal-oriented and outcome-oriented is an opportunity that we have in cloud.”

A primary objective for IBM Cloud is protecting the services it offers, whether it’s infrastructure, networking, container, or other services. In fact, it’s all about protecting these services down to the core of what the service is, how it works, and how it provides security, Hunter explained.

“It’s a fundamentally different approach than one takes for your own IT, where you are responsible end-to-end for everything,” Hunter said. “In this case, we secure what we’re doing, and then we enable through things like our security advisor to do configurations … that govern the developer behavior and ensure that overall together, between us and the client … it is secure and compliant.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. Neither IBM Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE