Getting started with VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds
This guide walks you through the necessary steps to understand how VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds works so you can implement your first cloud account.
How does it work?
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds is an intelligent multi-cloud security solution that helps organizations minimize security risk and proactively mitigate threats across cloud environments. For specific details on how the service connects with your organization in the cloud and handles information, refer to this section:
Running VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds is a browser-based application and and accessible from any desktop or laptop running a web browser. For best results, you should access the browser client on a desktop or laptop running the latest version of Google Chrome. It's possible to use previous versions of Chrome or other web browsers, but note that product features aren't tested for any of these.
For operating systems, you can use MacOS, Linux, or Windows. There are some specific OS dependencies when onboarding resources from a cloud provider:
- MacOS or Linux is required to onboard a new AWS account.
- MacOS, Linux, or Windows can be used to onboard Azure subscriptions or GCP projects.
Region support
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds monitoring extends to cloud accounts in any global region for supported providers, with two exceptions:
- Government environments are supported for AWS and Microsoft Azure, but not for other providers.
- Chinese regions are not supported for any provider.
Setting up federated identity
As a VMware Cloud service, VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds supports self-service enterprise federation through any SAML 2.0 compliant cloud-based identity provider. Customers may choose a connector-based or connector-less federation setup depending on their organizational needs. Once configured, users need just one org owner to authenticate through the VMware Cloud Services Platform (CSP) with their corporate credentials.
For specific instructions on setting this up for your corporate domain, see the VMware docs article on enterprise federation.
Add your cloud accounts
All VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds activities are based off the presence of one or more cloud accounts. A cloud account is an entity that represents the basic unit your cloud providers for containing resources, such as an AWS account, an Azure subscription, and so on.
You can onboard your cloud resources by creating a number of cloud accounts associated with cloud provider units you want to onboard. VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds supports onboarding for the following cloud providers and services:
View your security findings
Once your accounts are onboarded, the service begins to analyze various configurations and reports findings on any violations. Refer to these articles for directions on the various ways you can view, research, and resolve findings:
Get custom alerts and reports
These articles show you how to configure helpful actions that can automate reporting and alerts for any findings or resources you want heightened visibility on. You can use supported integrations to further extend alerts outside of VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds on platforms like Slack, Amazon S3, or Jira Cloud.
