The biggest question I ask myself when I see VMsafe appliances is: will it replace my current virtual firewall setup? Replace my Anti-virus? or Both? I am seeing a trend that gives me pause. That is a VMsafe appliance being more than one thing. For example, Trend Micro is an Anti-Virus company that bought Third Brigade (a firewall company) and are now in the mix of merging the two technologies into one. What has happened to one tool that does one thing and does that one thing very well?
Edward L. Haletky, aka Texiwill, is an analyst, author, architect, technologist, and out-of-the-box thinker. As an analyst, Edward looks at all things IoT, big data, cloud, security, and DevOps. As an author, he has written about virtualization and security. As an architect, Edward creates peer-reviewed reference architectures for hybrid cloud, cloud-native applications, and many other aspects of the modern business. As a technologist, Edward creates code prototypes for parts of those architectures. Edward is solving today’s problems in an implementable fashion.
Can the SMB Afford Virtualization?
There has been quite a bit of debate about SMB virtualization and what they want. However, no one has really looked into whether or not the SMB can afford virtualization. There is quite a bit of talk that says that the SMB wants everything for free, or that they will get immediate benefits from virtualization, but can they actually afford VMware, HyperV, XenServer, or KVM?
ThinApp Security Concerns
Since I last blogged ThinApp I have been thinking about the security aspects of ThinApp and came up with a set of questions to which I searched for some answers. In essence could ThinApp be used to subvert existing system security? What about other similar technologies like Microsoft App-V.
Cloud Computing Providers — are they content providers or carriers?
Last month Verizon expanded its Computing as a Service (CaaS) cloud computing offering. The expansion itself is not surprising. The interesting tidbit is that Verizon has Carrier Status and therefore different laws apply to them than any other cloud provider that does not have this status, such as Amazon EC2, Terramark, etc. Will cloud computing providers be the next internet service provider? If so will they have to battle to not be responsible for the content within their clouds, as did internet service providers with the battle that ensued over the Communications Decency Act?
Updated: There is a Need for VMsafe Certification from VMware
The use of VMware VMsafe enabled third party products introduces third party fastpath drivers into your hypervisor. What these drivers ultimately do is interact with the VMsafe fastpath API, but is that ALL they do? That is why we need some level of certification for VMsafe fast path drivers. We need to KNOW that they do not do anything wrong, bad, or unfortunate.
Is Network Security the Major Component of Virtualization Security?
In many cases when you start to discuss security of virtualization, you soon drop into a discussion of virtual networking, and management network security. In other words you are laying out the traditional security zones that exist within the networking world. Network security, virtual and physical, is extremely important however there is more to virtualization security than just your network. Here are some new ways to consider virtualization security.