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Managing cluster security objectives

Unified Manager provides a dashboard that identifies how secure your ONTAP clusters, storage virtual machines (SVMs), and volumes are based on recommendations defined in the ThinkSystem DM Series Security Hardening Guide For ONTAP 9.

The goal of the security dashboard is to show any areas where your ONTAP clusters do not align with the Lenovo recommended guidelines so that you can fix these potential issues. In most cases you will fix the issues using ThinkSystem Storage Manager for DM Series or the ONTAP CLI. Your organization may not follow all of the recommendations, so in some cases you will not need to make any changes.

See the ThinkSystem DM Series Security Hardening Guide For ONTAP 9 (TR-4569) for detailed recommendations and resolutions.

In addition to reporting security status, Unified Manager also generates security events for any cluster or SVM that has security violations. You can track these issues in the Event Management inventory page and you can configure alerts for these events so that your storage administrator is notified when new security events occur.

  • What security criteria is being evaluated
    In general, security criteria for your ONTAP clusters, storage virtual machines (SVMs), and volumes are being evaluated against the recommendations defined in the ThinkSystem DM Series Security Hardening Guide For ONTAP 9.
  • What does not compliant mean
    Clusters and storage virtual machines (SVMs) are considered not compliant when any of the security criteria that is being evaluated against the recommendations defined in the ThinkSystem DM Series Security Hardening Guide For ONTAP 9 are not met. Additionally, a cluster is considered not compliant when any SVM is flagged as being not compliant.
  • Viewing high-level cluster security status
    The Security panel on the Unified Manager Dashboard shows high-level security status for all clusters or for a single cluster, depending on your current view.
  • Viewing detailed security status for clusters and SVMs
    The Security page shows high-level security status for all clusters, and detailed security status for individual clusters. The detailed cluster status includes cluster compliance, SVM compliance, and volume encryption compliance.
  • Viewing how user authentication is being managed on all clusters
    The Security page displays the types of authentication being used to authenticate users on each cluster, and the number of users who are accessing the cluster using each type. This enables you to verify that user authentication is being performed securely as defined by your organization.
  • Viewing the encryption status of all volumes
    You can view a list of all the volumes and their current encryption status so you can determine whether the data on your volumes is adequately protected from being accessed by unauthorized users.
  • Viewing all active security events
    You can view all the active security events and then assign each of them to a user who can resolve the issue. Additionally, if there are certain security events that you do not want to receive, this list can help you identify the events that you want to disable.
  • Adding alerts for security events
    You can configure alerts for individual security events just like any other events received by Unified Manager. Additionally, if you want to treat all security events alike and have email sent to the same person, you can create a single alert to notify you when any security events are triggered.
  • Disabling specific security events
    All events are enabled by default. You can disable specific events to prevent the generation of notifications for those events that are not important in your environment. You can enable events that are disabled if you want to resume receiving notifications for them.
  • Security events
    Security events provide you with information about the security status of ONTAP clusters, storage virtual machines (SVMs), and volumes based on parameters defined in the ThinkSystem DM Series Security Hardening Guide For ONTAP 9. These events notify you of potential issues so that you can evaluate their severity and fix the issue if necessary.