This years Innovation Sandbox at RSA Conference was won by a little know company to virtualization and cloud security vendors, its name is Invincea. However, it makes use of virtualization to aid in security. This years finalists once more included HyTrust for the inclusion of what appears to be complete UCS support within the HyTrust Appliance, Symplified which provides a unified identity within a cloud, CipherCloud which encrypts bits of your data before uploading, but not enough encryption to mess with sort and other algorithms. Plus other non-cloud like products: Entersect (non-repudiation in the form of PKI), Gazzang (MySQL Encryption), Incapsula (collaborative security to browsers), Pawaa (embed security metadata with files), Quaresso (secure browsing without browser/OS mods), and Silver Tail (mitigation).
TVP Strategy Archives
Microsoft Windows Thin PC – a solution only a mother could love
Attached as a footnote to last week’s big news of Windows 7 SP1 being released to manufacture, Microsoft also announced a new lightweight edition of Windows 7. Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) is in many respects a Windows 7-based update of Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP), a lightweight locked down version of Windows XP SP3 that was offered to enterprise customers as an encouragement to get them to migrate away from Windows 2000 without the cost of performing a hardware refresh at the same time.
Proving Identity in the Cloud
Unlike last year where there were many virtualization security vendors existed at RSA Conference, there was a noticeable lack of them within booths, yet all of them were here to talk to existing and potential customers. However, there were many vendors offering identity management in the cloud for these I asked the identity management product owners the following question:
How can you prove identity in the cloud?
RES Software Ships Virtual Desktop Extender: standalone reverse seamless now available
RES Virtual Desktop Extender (VDX) is now available as a standalone offering. Priced at $15 / seat RES VDX is an incredibly useful enabler for virtualised desktops. It delivers on improving the user experience and better matching the needs of the user by allowing access to applications they need to use in their workspace.
Self Encrypting Disks (SEDs)
The next true IT industry revolutionary product will be software, virtualization and cloud technology that does not require underlying physical hardware resources (servers, network and disk storage). While we wait for that revolutionary technology to appear outside of marketing or computer generated animations, there remains the need to protect cloud and virtual environments and their underling disk storage. Underlying disk storage includes among others solid state device (SSD) as well hard disk drive (HDD) and Removable Hard Disk Drive (RHDD) packaged in different types of solutions accessed via shared SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE or NAS.
Can you avoid the VDI Tax?
With Microsoft reporting that Windows 7 VDI environments can be up to 11% more expensive than Windows 7 with traditional desktops when will desktop virtualisation give you a return on investment? Will performance taxes, license taxes and complexity taxes mean that desktop virtualisation will never be more than a niche service regardless of the clamour from VDI vendors hailing 2011 as the year for VDI as they did in 2010?
Or, is it that the taxation can be accommodated, all be it without short term gains because your business will benefit from the representation of a user’s application set not simply from their cubicle’s monitor?