For many organizations, hosting a video conferencing solution in a public cloud simply isn’t an option. At Pexip, we see that this is the case for several defense, intelligence, judicial and healthcare agencies, all of whom have stricter requirements for storage and transport of highly sensitive data. As such, they often ask us for advice in determining the best self-hosting options for them, to ensure that their video conferences stay secure.
But when it comes to hosting options, there isn’t necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach. It can be tricky to determine which option is best for your organization’s needs, which is why we’ve created a guide to help you find the best solution.
We’ve taken a ‘Goldilocks’ approach to finding the right hosting option to meet your needs. Find the best fit among the three options.
In the Intelligence and Defense communities, where security and control over sensitive information are paramount, the most common hosting set-up is to have separate physical networks adjusted to the necessary security level. We see that air-gapped systems are most common to ensure the highest level of security.
An air-gapped service or network is physically isolated from less secure or insecure networks, meaning you would need to be physically attached to the network to access services. This gives you the ultimate level of security, full control over data and the ability to contain information, as well as operational assurance.
Organizations such as Defense and Intelligence communities may also be required to communicate externally. For this, they would still need to host their video platform locally but do so on a public facing network with a lower clearance level. In addition to perimeter security, the users would need strong authentication methods, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), which requires more than one method of verification. This is a particularly effective approach when using public-facing networks where the risk of unauthorized access is higher due to the network’s visibility and accessibility.
Organizations that are not constrained by regulatory compliance or sovereignty laws can certainly use cloud-based services to host their primary collaboration tool. However, for certain confidential projects, topics, recipients or even when specific people are involved, there may be requirements to communicate in a more secure fashion than their everyday communication tool allows for.
In these cases, Pexip recommends a private instance of its video platform – a place in which all confidential meetings reside. For the end-user, selecting a secure meeting would be as simple as clicking a button in Outlook or wherever they normally schedule their video calls, and in an instant, they can easily create a more secure environment to host their confidential meeting.
Read more about Pexip's self-hosted solutions here