A Distributed Vaults environment in CyberArk is an advanced setup designed to improve the scalability, availability, and disaster recovery capabilities of the CyberArk Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution. It involves deploying multiple Digital Vaults across different geographical locations or network segments, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure while also providing high availability and fault tolerance.
What is a Distributed Vault Environment?
In a Distributed Vaults environment, CyberArk’s Digital Vaults are deployed in a distributed manner across various locations, which helps to:
1. Enhance Scalability: Multiple vaults can handle more users, systems, and credentials without overloading a single vault.
2. Improve Disaster Recovery: If one vault goes down due to a network failure or disaster, other vaults can still provide access, ensuring business continuity.
3. Reduce Latency: By distributing vaults across different regions, users and systems can connect to the nearest vault, reducing access times and improving performance.
4. Isolate Risk: By separating vaults across networks or regions, the security risk is contained in case one vault is compromised.
This setup is especially beneficial for organizations that operate in multiple locations or require strict disaster recovery and business continuity measures.
Types of Distributed Vaults in CyberArk:
1. Primary Vault: This is the main vault where the majority of credential and secret management activities occur.
2. Disaster Recovery (DR) Vault: A backup vault that synchronizes with the primary vault and is used when the primary vault becomes unavailable.
3. Regional Vaults: These are additional vaults deployed in different regions or network segments to handle local traffic and reduce dependency on the primary vault.
4. Secondary Vaults: These may be used to store less critical data or handle specialized workflows while being synchronized with the primary vault.
Key Features of Distributed Vaults:
• Data Replication: Distributed vaults can replicate data between each other, ensuring consistency and high availability across all vaults.
• Failover Mechanism: In case of a failure in the primary vault, systems and users can automatically switch to the DR or regional vaults, maintaining access to privileged credentials.
• Load Balancing: By distributing vaults, CyberArk can balance the load across multiple vaults, optimizing performance.
How to Configure Distributed Vaults in CyberArk
Configuring a Distributed Vault environment in CyberArk involves several key steps, including the deployment of multiple vaults, configuring replication, setting up disaster recovery mechanisms, and ensuring network connectivity between vaults.
Step 1: Install Primary Digital Vault
• First, install the primary Digital Vault following standard installation procedures.
• The Vault Administrator configures encryption keys and secure communication during the setup.
• Ensure that this vault is installed on a dedicated, secure server with proper access controls.
• Set up safes, permissions, and access policies as needed for the primary vault.
Step 2: Install Additional Vaults (Regional, DR, or Secondary Vaults)
• Install additional vaults in other regions or locations.
• During the installation, configure these vaults to serve as secondary or regional vaults.
• In case of a DR Vault, install it in a geographically different data center or network segment to ensure high availability during a disaster.
• For regional vaults, place them closer to the users or systems that will access them.
Step 3: Configure Data Replication Between Vaults
• Data replication ensures that the vaults are synchronized, and any changes in one vault (e.g., credential changes, account additions) are reflected in the others.
1. Open the Vault Configuration Console.
2. Set up bi-directional replication between the primary vault and the distributed vaults (regional or DR vaults).
3. Ensure that sensitive data, like credentials and secrets, are replicated across vaults according to the organization’s policy.
4. Use replication rules to define which data (safes) should be synchronized and how often replication should occur (real-time or scheduled replication).
Step 4: Set Up Failover Mechanism
• A critical feature of a distributed vault environment is its ability to failover to another vault in case one vault becomes unavailable.
1. Configure automatic failover using CyberArk Vault Synchronization services.
2. Test the failover process to ensure that, when the primary vault fails, the DR or regional vaults take over seamlessly, providing uninterrupted access to privileged accounts.
3. Use Vault Disaster Recovery (DR) services to manage and monitor the health of vaults, including alerting mechanisms for vault failures.
Step 5: Network Connectivity and Load Balancing
• Ensure proper network connectivity between all vaults in the distributed environment.
1. Set up firewall rules to allow secure communication between vaults.
2. If applicable, configure load balancers to distribute traffic between the vaults for optimal performance.
3. Establish secure VPN connections or MPLS networks between vaults in different geographical regions for encrypted data transfer.
Step 6: Security Configuration
• Configure advanced security measures for each vault to ensure that even if one vault is compromised, others remain protected.
1. Set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) for accessing the vaults.
2. Define access control policies for users and groups accessing the vaults.
3. Regularly monitor and audit vault activity using audit trails and reporting tools.
Step 7: Test the Distributed Vaults Configuration
• Perform rigorous testing of the entire distributed vault setup to ensure that:
1. Data replication works as expected.
2. Failover between vaults is seamless and fast.
3. Network performance remains optimal.
4. Security policies are enforced consistently across all vaults.
Step 8: Ongoing Maintenance and Monitoring
• Regularly monitor the health and performance of all distributed vaults using CyberArk’s built-in monitoring tools or third-party monitoring solutions.
• Ensure vaults are patched with the latest updates and have consistent backup and recovery procedures in place.
Conclusion
Configuring a Distributed Vaults environment in CyberArk is essential for enterprises requiring scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery capabilities. The process involves setting up multiple vaults, configuring replication, ensuring seamless failover, and securing communication between the vaults. Proper configuration of these vaults allows organizations to enhance their cybersecurity posture and maintain access to privileged credentials even during network disruptions or disasters.
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