Building Zero-Trust Network Security on OpenStack with Microsegmentation

Your security team just finished implementing VLANs to segment your production environment from development. Everyone feels better about the network perimeter. Then someone’s laptop gets compromised, and within hours, the attacker has moved laterally across 15 servers because everything inside the perimeter was implicitly trusted.

This is why zero-trust networking matters. The old castle-and-moat security model assumes that anything inside your network perimeter is trustworthy. Modern attacks prove this assumption wrong every single day. Zero-trust flips the model: verify everything, trust nothing, regardless of network location.

For security architects running OpenStack private clouds, zero-trust isn’t just a buzzword anymore. It’s becoming table stakes for compliance frameworks, and organizations that implement it properly see dramatic reductions in breach impact. The challenge is implementing microsegmentation that actually enforces zero-trust principles without killing performance or making operations impossible.

This guide walks through building production-grade zero-trust networking on OpenStack using Neutron security groups, OVN acceleration, and automation strategies that scale. We’ll cover what actually works, how to avoid the performance traps, and the operational patterns that separate theoretical zero-trust from implementations that survive contact with real infrastructure.

Understanding Zero-Trust in Cloud Infrastructure

Zero-trust networking means every connection gets verified regardless of where it originates. A database server in your production VPC doesn’t automatically trust connections from web servers in the same VPC just because they share a network segment. Each connection requires explicit authorization based on identity, not network location.

This is fundamentally different from traditional network security. In perimeter-based security, you build firewalls at network boundaries. Traffic flowing inside those boundaries moves freely. You trust based on location: if a connection comes from inside the firewall, it must be legitimate.

Zero-trust removes this assumption. Network location provides zero security value. A compromised server inside your perimeter is just as dangerous as an external attacker, potentially more so because it already has internal network access. OpenMetal’s private cloud architecture enables true zero-trust implementation by providing the transparency and control that hyperscaler environments cannot deliver.

The Microsegmentation Foundation

Microsegmentation implements zero-trust at the network level. Instead of segmenting your network into large zones (production, development, DMZ), you create security boundaries around every workload. Each virtual machine, container, or service operates in its own isolated segment with explicitly defined communication policies.

OpenStack provides microsegmentation capabilities through VLANs and VXLANs combined with Neutron security groups. VLANs create physical network segmentation while VXLANs enable overlay networks that support massive scale. Security groups then enforce instance-level firewall rules that control exactly which traffic reaches each workload.

The combination creates defense in depth. Physical network isolation prevents broadcast storms and ARP spoofing. VXLAN overlays provide logical separation between tenants or workload types. Security groups enforce application-specific policies at the VM level.

Why Traditional Segmentation Falls Short

Most organizations start with network segmentation using VLANs. You create separate VLANs for web servers, application servers, and databases. Traffic between VLANs flows through firewalls with access control rules.

This provides some security benefit, but it doesn’t implement zero-trust. All web servers in the web tier can communicate freely. If an attacker compromises one web server, they can pivot to other web servers without triggering security controls. The attacker moves laterally within the zone, potentially accessing dozens of systems before detection.

Microsegmentation solves this problem by creating security boundaries at the workload level instead of the zone level. Even if an attacker compromises one web server, they cannot automatically access other web servers. Each connection attempt triggers policy enforcement.

Neutron Security Groups for Zero-Trust

OpenStack Neutron security groups implement stateful firewall rules at the virtual machine level. They control both ingress and egress traffic for every network port attached to an instance.

Security groups work differently than traditional firewalls. Instead of placing firewall devices at network boundaries, Neutron implements firewall rules directly on the compute hosts using iptables or OVN ACLs. This distributes the security enforcement across your infrastructure rather than concentrating it on dedicated firewall appliances.

How Security Groups Work

When you create an OpenStack instance, Neutron attaches one or more security groups to its network ports. These security groups contain rules that specify allowed traffic patterns. By default, security groups deny all ingress traffic and allow all egress traffic.

This default policy embodies the zero-trust principle. Nothing can connect to your instance unless you explicitly allow it.

You build security policies by adding rules that permit specific traffic:

# Allow SSH from management network only
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 22 \
  --remote-ip 10.1.0.0/24 \
  web-servers

# Allow HTTPS from application load balancer
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 443 \
  --remote-group app-lb \
  web-servers

The first rule permits SSH connections only from the management network subnet. The second rule allows HTTPS traffic, but only from instances in the app-lb security group. This creates microsegmentation where only authorized sources can establish connections.

Security Group Architecture

OpenStack implements security groups using either iptables on Linux bridges or OVN (Open Virtual Network) ACLs. The implementation affects performance, but the security model remains consistent.

iptables Implementation: The original Neutron implementation uses iptables rules on Linux bridges. Each compute node runs an L2 agent that translates security group rules into iptables chains. When a packet arrives at a VM’s network interface, iptables evaluates it against the security group rules before allowing it through.

This works reliably but creates performance challenges at scale. Each security group rule becomes multiple iptables rules. A deployment with 1000 VMs and 50 security group rules might generate hundreds of thousands of iptables rules across the infrastructure. Rule evaluation becomes slow, and updates take seconds or minutes to propagate.

OVN Implementation: Modern OpenStack deployments use OVN for networking. OVN implements security groups as ACLs (Access Control Lists) in OpenvSwitch flows. This provides better performance because OpenvSwitch evaluates rules in kernel space rather than userspace, and OVN uses more efficient data structures than iptables chains.

OVN also solves the scaling problem by using port groups. Instead of creating separate ACLs for every VM port, OVN groups ports that share security groups and applies rules to the group. This dramatically reduces the number of flow rules needed.

Remote Security Groups

One of Neutron’s most powerful features for zero-trust is remote security groups. Instead of specifying IP addresses or CIDR blocks, you reference other security groups. This creates dynamic, identity-based policies that adapt as your infrastructure changes.

Consider a three-tier application: web servers, application servers, and database servers. Traditional firewall rules use IP addresses:

Allow web_subnet (10.0.1.0/24) -> app_subnet (10.0.2.0/24) port 8080
Allow app_subnet (10.0.2.0/24) -> db_subnet (10.0.3.0/24) port 3306

This works until you need to add servers, change IP addresses, or move workloads between subnets. Every change requires firewall rule updates. Remote security groups solve this problem:

# Allow traffic from web-servers group to app-servers on port 8080
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 8080 \
  --remote-group web-servers \
  app-servers

# Allow traffic from app-servers group to db-servers on port 3306
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 3306 \
  --remote-group app-servers \
  db-servers

Now when you add a new web server and assign it the web-servers security group, it automatically gets access to application servers. No firewall rule changes needed. The policy is based on identity (security group membership), not network location (IP address).

This is the foundation of zero-trust microsegmentation. Permissions flow from identity, and identity travels with the workload regardless of where it runs.

Performance Considerations for Microsegmentation

Zero-trust networking creates more security decision points. Every packet might trigger policy evaluation. In high-throughput environments, this overhead becomes noticeable. The key is implementing microsegmentation without destroying network performance.

Connection Tracking and State

Neutron security groups are stateful. When you allow inbound TCP traffic on port 443, response traffic flows back automatically without requiring separate egress rules. The system tracks connections using Linux connection tracking (conntrack).

Connection tracking provides significant performance benefits. After the first packet in a connection passes policy evaluation, subsequent packets in the same connection bypass most of the rule processing. This reduces per-packet overhead dramatically.

However, connection tracking has limits. Each tracked connection consumes memory in the kernel’s conntrack table. High-throughput servers handling thousands of concurrent connections can exhaust the default conntrack table size, causing new connections to fail.

Monitor conntrack table usage on compute nodes:

# Check current conntrack entries
sudo conntrack -C

# Check conntrack table limit
sudo sysctl net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max

# Increase limit if needed
sudo sysctl -w net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max=262144

For workloads with extremely high connection rates, you might need conntrack table sizes of 256K-1M entries. Each entry consumes roughly 300 bytes of kernel memory.

OVN Performance Optimization

OpenStack deployments using OVN for networking achieve better performance than iptables-based implementations. OVN evaluates rules in kernel space using OpenvSwitch flows, which is significantly faster than userspace iptables processing.

OVN also implements several optimizations specifically for security groups:

Port Groups: Instead of creating separate ACLs for every port, OVN groups ports with identical security groups and applies rules to the group. A security group shared by 100 VMs creates one set of ACL flows instead of 100.

Conjunction Flows: OVN uses conjunction flows to efficiently represent complex security rules. Instead of expanding every combination of source and destination into separate flows, conjunction flows use boolean logic to represent multiple conditions.

Connection Tracking Zones: OVN uses connection tracking zones to isolate connection state between different logical networks. This prevents connection table exhaustion in large multi-tenant environments.

These optimizations mean OVN-based security groups scale to thousands of VMs with minimal performance impact. The throughput difference between having security groups enabled versus disabled is typically less than 5% with OVN.

Egress Filtering Performance

Most organizations focus on ingress filtering (controlling what comes in) but neglect egress filtering (controlling what goes out). Zero-trust requires both. Network segmentation strategies work best when combined with comprehensive egress controls. Egress filtering prevents compromised servers from initiating unauthorized outbound connections.

By default, Neutron security groups allow all egress traffic. For zero-trust, you should flip this to deny-by-default and explicitly allow only necessary outbound connections:

# Remove default egress rules
openstack security group rule delete <default-egress-ipv4-rule-id>
openstack security group rule delete <default-egress-ipv6-rule-id>

# Allow only specific egress traffic
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 443 \
  --egress \
  --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0 \
  web-servers  # HTTPS to internet

openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 3306 \
  --egress \
  --remote-group db-servers \
  app-servers  # MySQL to database tier only

Egress filtering adds overhead because every outbound connection triggers policy evaluation. However, with OVN and connection tracking, the performance impact is minimal for typical workloads. The security benefit far outweighs the microseconds of additional latency.

Automating Zero-Trust Policy Management

Managing security groups manually doesn’t scale. A deployment with hundreds of applications and thousands of VMs needs automation. The challenge is automating policy management without creating security gaps or breaking applications.

Infrastructure as Code with Terraform

Terraform provides declarative security group management. You define the desired security posture in code, and Terraform ensures it matches reality:

resource "openstack_networking_secgroup_v2" "web_servers" {
  name        = "web-servers"
  description = "Security group for web tier"
}

resource "openstack_networking_secgroup_rule_v2" "web_https_ingress" {
  direction         = "ingress"
  ethertype         = "IPv4"
  protocol          = "tcp"
  port_range_min    = 443
  port_range_max    = 443
  security_group_id = openstack_networking_secgroup_v2.web_servers.id
  remote_group_id   = openstack_networking_secgroup_v2.load_balancers.id
}

resource "openstack_networking_secgroup_rule_v2" "web_app_egress" {
  direction         = "egress"
  ethertype         = "IPv4"
  protocol          = "tcp"
  port_range_min    = 8080
  port_range_max    = 8080
  security_group_id = openstack_networking_secgroup_v2.web_servers.id
  remote_group_id   = openstack_networking_secgroup_v2.app_servers.id
}

This code creates security groups and rules with remote group references. When you add new application tiers, you update the Terraform configuration and apply it. Terraform handles creating the necessary resources and updating dependencies.

The key advantage is audit trails. Every security policy change flows through Git, creating a complete history of who changed what and why. This satisfies compliance requirements and makes troubleshooting simpler. GitOps workflows for OpenStack infrastructure provide the automation framework that makes managing thousands of security rules sustainable.

Dynamic Security Group Assignment

Zero-trust policies should adapt as workloads change. When you launch a new web server, it should automatically receive appropriate security group assignments without manual intervention.

Heat templates support dynamic security group assignment based on instance metadata:

resources:
  web_server:
    type: OS::Nova::Server
    properties:
      name: web-01
      image: ubuntu-22.04
      flavor: m.medium
      networks:
        - port: { get_resource: web_port }
      
  web_port:
    type: OS::Neutron::Port
    properties:
      network: { get_param: web_network }
      security_groups:
        - { get_param: web_security_group }
        - { get_param: monitoring_security_group }
        - { get_param: logging_security_group }

This pattern ensures every web server gets three security groups: application-specific rules, monitoring access, and logging access. You don’t risk forgetting security group assignments during rapid scaling events.

Policy Validation and Testing

Before applying security policy changes to production, validate them in lower environments. Terraform’s plan command shows exactly what will change:

terraform plan -out=security-policy.plan

Review the plan carefully. Look for:

• Unexpected security group deletions
• Rules that allow traffic more broadly than intended
• Missing egress filtering rules
• CIDR blocks that should be remote security groups instead

For critical changes, test in a staging environment that mirrors production topology. Deploy the security policy changes, then run connectivity tests to verify applications still function:

# Test web to app connectivity
ssh web-server "curl http://app-server:8080/health"

# Test app to database connectivity  
ssh app-server "mysql -h db-server -e 'SELECT 1'"

# Test egress filtering
ssh web-server "curl https://external-api.example.com/test"

Automated testing catches policy mistakes before they impact production. A broken security rule that blocks legitimate traffic is just as bad as one that allows unauthorized access.

Compliance Mapping for Zero-Trust

Compliance frameworks increasingly require zero-trust principles. PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, and others all mandate network segmentation and access controls that align with zero-trust architecture.

PCI-DSS Requirements

PCI-DSS explicitly requires network segmentation to reduce audit scope. Requirement 1.2.1 states: “Implement only one primary function per server to prevent functions that require different security levels from coexisting on the same server.”

Zero-trust microsegmentation satisfies this requirement by isolating workloads even when they run on shared infrastructure. Payment processors using OpenStack can implement PCI-compliant network segmentation using Neutron security groups combined with dedicated VLANs.

For cardholder data environment (CDE) servers, create security groups that:

• Deny all inbound traffic except from authorized systems
• Deny all outbound traffic except to specific destinations
• Log all connection attempts for audit purposes

Document your security group architecture as part of PCI compliance documentation. Auditors need to understand how network segmentation prevents unauthorized access to CDE systems.

HIPAA Safeguards

HIPAA requires appropriate technical safeguards to protect electronic protected health information (ePHI). While HIPAA doesn’t mandate specific technologies, zero-trust networking demonstrates reasonable safeguards.

The HIPAA Security Rule’s “addressable” specifications for network security include:

• Access control (164.312(a)(1))
• Transmission security (164.312(e)(1))
• Integrity controls (164.312(c)(1))

OpenStack private cloud compliance implementations can demonstrate these controls through:

Access Control: Security groups that limit network access to ePHI systems based on role and need

Transmission Security: Mandatory encryption enforced through security group rules (allow only TLS/HTTPS)

Integrity Controls: Egress filtering that prevents unauthorized data exfiltration

Document how your zero-trust implementation addresses each HIPAA requirement. Show auditors the security group rules that protect ePHI systems and explain how they implement least-privilege access.

SOC 2 Trust Service Criteria

SOC 2 audits evaluate controls against Trust Service Criteria. The security category (CC6) includes criteria for logical and physical access controls. Zero-trust microsegmentation addresses several SOC 2 criteria:

CC6.1 – Logical Access Security: “The entity implements logical access security software, infrastructure, and architectures over protected information assets to protect them from security events.”

Neutron security groups provide the logical access security required. Document how security groups enforce least-privilege access and demonstrate that only authorized systems can access sensitive data.

CC6.6 – Network Segmentation: “The entity implements network segmentation to reduce potential unauthorized access to system components.”

Your VLAN and VXLAN network segmentation combined with security group microsegmentation directly satisfies this criterion. Provide network topology diagrams showing how different trust zones segment the environment.

CC6.7 – Access Restriction: “The entity restricts the transmission, movement, and removal of information to authorized internal and external users and processes.”

Egress filtering in security groups demonstrates transmission restriction. Show auditors how your security groups prevent unauthorized data exfiltration.

Operational Patterns for Production Zero-Trust

Implementing zero-trust in production requires operational patterns that prevent security policy from breaking applications or blocking legitimate traffic.

Security Group Hierarchy

Organize security groups hierarchically to avoid repetition and simplify management. Create base security groups that provide common services, then layer application-specific groups on top. Multi-tenant OpenStack architectures benefit particularly from this hierarchical approach.

Base Groups:

• base-monitoring: Allows metrics collection and health checks
• base-logging: Permits log forwarding to centralized systems
• base-management: SSH access from management network

Application Groups:

• web-servers: HTTP/HTTPS ingress, app tier egress
• app-servers: Web tier ingress, database tier egress
• db-servers: App tier ingress, replication egress

Every instance gets one or more base groups plus its application-specific group. This pattern ensures no instance lacks monitoring or logging access while keeping application policies separate.

Change Management Process

Zero-trust policies affect application connectivity. Changes need careful review to avoid breaking production. Establish a change management process:

1. Request: Developer submits security policy change with business justification
2. Review: Security team reviews for compliance and security impact
3. Staging: Apply change to staging environment
4. Testing: Automated tests verify connectivity still works
5. Production: Apply change during maintenance window
6. Validation: Monitor application metrics for unexpected failures

Track all security policy changes in a ticketing system. This creates audit trails and helps diagnose connectivity issues when they occur.

Emergency Access Procedures

Sometimes you need to temporarily bypass zero-trust policies for troubleshooting. Define emergency access procedures that maintain security while enabling operations:

# Create temporary security group for troubleshooting
openstack security group create emergency-access-$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Add broad access rules
openstack security group rule create \
  --protocol tcp \
  --dst-port 22 \
  --remote-ip 10.1.0.0/24 \
  emergency-access-$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Attach to affected instance
openstack server add security group web-01 emergency-access-$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Remove after troubleshooting (automated cleanup after 4 hours)

Log all emergency access usage. Review logs regularly to identify patterns that indicate permanent policy changes are needed.

Monitoring and Alerting

Zero-trust policies only work if you monitor them. Set up alerts for:

Policy Violations: Blocked connection attempts might indicate legitimate traffic you need to allow or unauthorized access attempts

High Block Rates: Sudden increases in blocked traffic often indicate misconfigured applications or security incidents

Policy Changes: Alert when security groups or rules change, especially outside maintenance windows

Use Neutron’s flow logging with security groups to capture connection attempts:

# Enable flow logging for security group
openstack network log create \
  --resource-type security_group \
  --resource web-servers \
  --event ACCEPT \
  --event DROP \
  web-servers-flow-log

Forward flow logs to your SIEM system for correlation with other security events. Connection patterns often reveal lateral movement attempts that individual events might miss. Proper OpenStack networking configuration ensures that security monitoring integrates seamlessly with your zero-trust architecture.

Advanced Zero-Trust Techniques

Once you have basic microsegmentation working, several advanced techniques can strengthen your zero-trust implementation.

Time-Based Access Controls

Some security policies should vary by time. Maintenance windows might require broader access that you don’t want enabled permanently.

Implement time-based controls using external automation:

import openstack
import schedule
import time

def enable_maintenance_access():
    conn = openstack.connect(cloud='production')
    
    # Add maintenance security group to instances
    for server in conn.compute.servers():
        if 'maintenance-eligible' in server.metadata:
            conn.compute.add_security_group_to_server(
                server,
                'maintenance-access'
            )

def disable_maintenance_access():
    conn = openstack.connect(cloud='production')
    
    # Remove maintenance security group
    for server in conn.compute.servers():
        if 'maintenance-eligible' in server.metadata:
            conn.compute.remove_security_group_from_server(
                server,
                'maintenance-access'
            )

# Schedule maintenance window (Sunday 2-6 AM)
schedule.every().sunday.at("02:00").do(enable_maintenance_access)
schedule.every().sunday.at("06:00").do(disable_maintenance_access)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(60)

This pattern enables just-in-time access for scheduled maintenance while keeping those permissions revoked outside maintenance windows.

Integration with Identity Providers

True zero-trust extends beyond network policies to identity-based access. Integrate OpenStack with your identity provider to tie security group membership to user roles:

When a user’s role changes (new employee, job change, termination), security group assignments update automatically. This ensures network access permissions stay synchronized with identity management systems.

Service Mesh for Application-Layer Zero-Trust

Network-layer zero-trust with security groups provides strong isolation, but it operates at IP and port levels. Service meshes extend zero-trust to the application layer with mutual TLS and JWT validation.

Deploy service meshes like Istio on Kubernetes running on your OpenStack private cloud. The combination creates defense in depth:

Network Layer (OpenStack Security Groups): Prevent unauthorized IP-level connectivity

Transport Layer (Service Mesh mTLS): Authenticate service identities and encrypt traffic

Application Layer (Service Mesh Policies): Authorize specific API operations

This layered approach means an attacker needs to bypass multiple independent security controls to move laterally or access sensitive data.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Zero-trust implementations fail in predictable ways. Knowing these pitfalls helps you avoid them.

Overly Broad Rules

The most common mistake is creating security group rules that are too permissive. Rules like “allow TCP 0-65535 from 10.0.0.0/8” provide no real security benefit. They give the appearance of security while allowing nearly unlimited access.

Every rule should specify:

• Exact protocol and port (not port ranges unless genuinely needed)
• Source based on remote security group or smallest possible CIDR
• Business justification documented in code comments

Review security group rules quarterly. Look for broad patterns that could be narrowed. Many rules start broad during initial implementation and never get tightened.

Neglecting Egress Filtering

Most organizations focus on ingress rules and ignore egress. This leaves a massive gap. Compromised servers can establish outbound connections to command-and-control infrastructure, exfiltrate data, or scan internal networks.

Implement deny-by-default egress policies. Allow only necessary outbound connections. This significantly limits what attackers can do even if they compromise a server. Comprehensive OpenStack security practices should always include egress filtering as a core component.

Poor Documentation

Security policies without documentation become maintainable nightmares. Six months after implementation, nobody remembers why specific rules exist or what breaks if you remove them.

Document every security group and rule with:

• Purpose and business justification
• Applications or services that depend on it
• Contact person or team responsible
• Date created and last reviewed

Store documentation alongside security policy code in Git. When someone proposes removing a rule, documentation explains what it does and whether removal is safe.

Insufficient Testing

Security policy changes in production often break applications. A typo in a security group rule can block legitimate traffic and cause outages. Test thoroughly in staging before applying to production.

Build automated connectivity tests that run after security policy changes. These tests should verify:

• All application components can reach their dependencies
• Unauthorized connections are blocked as expected
• Monitoring and logging still function

Failed tests should block deployment. Better to catch broken policies in staging than discover them during a production outage.

Ignoring Performance Metrics

Zero-trust adds security decision points. In most cases the overhead is negligible, but edge cases exist where microsegmentation impacts performance. Monitor network latency and throughput on compute nodes.

Watch for:

• Increasing packet drop rates at network interfaces
• Connection tracking table exhaustion
• OpenvSwitch flow table overflows
• Unusual CPU usage in kernel networking code

These symptoms indicate security group implementations hitting performance limits. Solutions include tuning kernel parameters, upgrading to OVN if using iptables, or adjusting security group design to reduce rule complexity.

Getting Started with Zero-Trust on OpenStack

If you’re ready to implement zero-trust networking for your OpenStack infrastructure, start incrementally:

Week 1-2: Audit Current State

• Document existing network topology and security controls
• Identify applications and their communication patterns
• Map current security posture against zero-trust principles
• Prioritize applications for initial microsegmentation

Week 3-4: Design Security Groups

• Create security group hierarchy (base + application groups)
• Define security group rules using remote groups
• Document policies and business justifications
• Build Terraform modules for security group management

Week 5-6: Implement in Staging

• Deploy security groups to staging environment
• Test application connectivity thoroughly
• Measure performance impact
• Refine policies based on testing results

Week 7-8: Production Rollout

• Apply security groups to production during maintenance window
• Enable flow logging for monitoring
• Watch for blocked legitimate traffic
• Adjust policies as needed

Ongoing: Operate and Improve

• Review security group rules quarterly
• Update policies as applications change
• Monitor for policy violations
• Train team on zero-trust principles

OpenMetal and Zero-Trust Networking

OpenMetal’s hosted private cloud provides the foundation for implementing zero-trust networking with OpenStack. Dedicated VLANs for each customer provide physical network isolation that complements microsegmentation at the virtual machine level.

The architecture supports both iptables and OVN-based security group implementations. For high-performance workloads requiring thousands of security rules, OVN provides the scalability needed without sacrificing throughput. You get full root access to configure OpenvSwitch settings and tune connection tracking parameters.

Fixed monthly pricing means implementing comprehensive microsegmentation doesn’t increase costs. Unlike usage-based cloud pricing where security group processing might impact bills, OpenMetal’s dedicated hardware lets you implement as many security controls as needed without financial penalties.

For organizations requiring compliance-ready infrastructure, OpenMetal’s combination of physical network isolation, support for advanced security features, and transparent architecture makes demonstrating zero-trust controls straightforward during audits.

Ready to implement zero-trust networking on OpenStack? Learn more about OpenMetal’s hosted private cloud or schedule a consultation to discuss your security requirements.