Security model - Temporal Cloud
What kind of security does Temporal Cloud provide?
The security model of Temporal Cloud encompasses applications, data, and the Temporal Cloud platform itself.
For information about the general security features of Temporal, see our Platform security page.
Application and data
What is the security model for applications and data in Temporal Cloud?
Code execution boundaries
Temporal Cloud provides the capabilities of Temporal Server as a managed service; it does not manage your applications or Workers. Applications and services written using Temporal SDKs run in your computing environment, such as containers (Docker, Kubernetes) or virtual machines (in any hosting environment). You have full control over how you secure your applications and services.
Data Converter: Client-side encryption
The optional Data Conversion capability of the Temporal Platform lets you transparently encrypt data before it's sent to Temporal Cloud and decrypt it when it comes out.
Data Conversion runs on your Temporal Workers and Clients; Temporal Cloud cannot see or decrypt your data. If you use this feature, data stored in Temporal Cloud remains encrypted even if the service itself is compromised.
By deploying a Codec Server you can securely decrypt data in the Temporal Web UI without sharing encryption keys with Temporal.
The platform
What is the security model for the Temporal Cloud platform?
Namespace isolation
The base unit of isolation in a Temporal environment is a Namespace. Each Temporal Cloud account can have multiple Namespaces. A Namespace (regardless of account) cannot interact with other Namespaces. Each Namespace is available through a secure gRPC (mTLS) endpoint and an HTTPS (TLS) endpoint. Temporal Cloud is a multi-tenant service. Namespaces in the same environment are logically segregated. Namespaces do not share data processing or data storage across regional boundaries.
Private Connectivity
Temporal Cloud supports private connectivity to enable you to connects to Temporal Cloud from a segregated cluster. You can find more details per cloud:
Temporal Nexus
Like Namespaces, a Nexus Endpoint is an account-scoped resource that is global within a Temporal Cloud account. Any Developer role (or higher) in an account, who is also a Namespace Admin on the endpoint’s target Namespace, can manage (create/update/delete) a Nexus Endpoint. All users with a Read-only role (or higher) in an account, can view and browse the full list of Endpoints.
Runtime access from a Workflow in a caller Namespace to a Nexus Endpoint is controlled by an allowlist policy (of caller Namespaces) for each Endpoint in the Nexus API registry. Workers authenticate with Temporal Cloud as they do today with mTLS certificates or API keys as allowed by the Namespace configuration. Nexus requests are sent from the caller’s Namespace to the handler’s Namespace over a secure multi-region mTLS Envoy mesh.
For payload encryption, the DataConverter works the same for a Nexus Operation as it does for other payloads sent between a Worker and Temporal Cloud.
See Nexus Security for more information.
Encryption
Communication into and out of Namespaces is over TLS. All communication within our production environments is over TLS 1.3. Data is stored in two separate locations: an Elasticsearch instance (used when filtering Workflows in SDK clients, the CLI, or the Web UI) and the core Temporal Cloud persistence layer. Both are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM.
For more information, see Requirements for CA certificates in Temporal Cloud.
Identity
Authentication to gRPC endpoints is provided by mTLS per Namespace.
For more information, see How to manage SAML authentication with Temporal Cloud.
Access
Authorization is managed at the account and Namespace level. Users and systems are assigned one or more preconfigured roles. Users hold account-level Roles of administrators, developers, and read-only users. Systems and applications processes hold their own distinct roles.
Monitoring
In addition to extensive system monitoring for operational and availability requirements, we collect and monitor audit logs from the AWS environment and all calls to the gRPC API (which is used by the SDKs, CLI, and Web UI). These audit logs can be made available for ingestion into your security monitoring system.
Testing
We contract with a third party to perform a full-scope pentest (with the exception of social engineering) annually. Additionally, we perform targeted third-party and internal testing on an as-needed basis, such as when a significant feature is being released.
Internal Temporal access
We restrict access to production systems to the small team of employees who maintain our production infrastructure. We log all access to production systems; shared accounts are not allowed. Access to all production systems is through SSO, with MFA enabled.
Access to our cloud environments is granted only for limited periods of time, with a maximum of 8 hours. (For more information, see the blog post Rolling out access hours at Temporal.)
All Temporal engineering systems are secured by GitHub credentials, which require both membership in the Temporal GitHub organization and MFA. Access grants are reviewed quarterly.
Compliance
Temporal Technologies is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and compliant with GDPR and HIPAA regulations. Compliance audits are available by request through our Contact page.