HP Adaptive Infrastructure Solution Security for BladeSystem Matrix

Access control
Safety deposit boxes in a bank have multiple security mechanisms in place to protect them. After
people are authenticated, usually by a picture ID, they are allowed to enter the bank vault. However,
each safety deposit box is locked and requires that a person have a key to access the contents of a
particular box. In some cases two keys are required, one by the person seeking access and one
supplied by the banking institution staff. These access controls ensure that the contents of each safe
deposit box can only be accessed by authorized individuals.
Just a few short years ago when one party wanted to send information to another party, such as a
person sending a loan application to a bank, it was sent through the postal service. To ensure the
confidentiality of the document contents a safety envelope, which obscured the contents from being
read through the envelope, was used. Further, the postal service is trusted not to tamper with the
envelope or its contents. These factors combined to provide a secure communications path for the
information to flow between parties. Though the means to achieve secure communications in a
computing environment is significantly more complex than the letter example just described, it is a
critical requirement to enable business to be conducted.
The two preceding paragraphs describe security mechanisms that sound very different. However, they
both provide forms of access control. The intent of access control is to permit or deny usage of a
resource (information) by a particular entity (a person or computer program). Access controls ensure
that information can only be seen by appropriate people or resources, providing confidentiality. They
also ensure that the information can only be modified by appropriate people or resources, providing
integrity.
In a computing environment, controlling access to resources and actions is critical. Numerous
mechanisms are used to achieve appropriate access controls. For example, operating systems use file
permissions to protect data files. Authorizations allow administrators to execute privileged tasks.
Various means such as network segmentation and encryption restrict access and keep
communications secure between hosts, between a host and storage, between a management
processor and a blade, and between components within a server blade enclosure. You can also
enforce time and location based access control policies. For example, specifying a restriction to only
allow a user access between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
The following sections examine the numerous and varied access control mechanisms that combine to
deliver a high level of security in the BladeSystem Matrix solution.
However, before you can define access control rules in a computing environment, you must have a
complete understanding of roles and responsibilities and what access is appropriate for each
individual (both regular users and administrators) device and program.
Authorization
A centralized management model requires a trusted relationship between the CMS and the devices
and servers that it manages. You must configure the trust relationship so that permitted actions can be
assigned at an appropriate level of granularity for the environment. In a large and multifaceted,
computing environment like the one provided by the Matrix solution, you must divide administrative
responsibilities. Some examples of how these responsibilities can be divided are described in the
Authentication section. The Matrix solution provides authorization mechanisms that simplify the
configuration and ongoing management of these administrative users. Privileges are usually required
for an administrator to perform their required tasks. However, you must have a mechanism in place to
ensure that the administrator only has the needed privileges.
HP SIM provides the concept of a toolbox, which enables a set of administrative commands to be
grouped together. The following default toolboxes are delivered with HP SIM:
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