Virtualization
Virtualization platforms such as VMware ESX server delivers compelling benefits to organizations by enabling server consolidation, power/space savings in datacenter. To effectively manage and secure virtual environments, IT operations need enterprise level visibility into the entire environment. Organizations need to ensure that the rapid deployment does not turn into uncontrolled creation of new virtual servers resulting in a virtual server sprawl. Virtualized environments need to demonstrate compliance with government, industry and vendor standards. Gartner estimates that by 2009, 60% of production VMs will be less secure than their physical counterparts. Thus, hardening of virtual platforms against emerging threats becomes an important requirement for IT operations. To take full advantage of virtualization, IT operations need to revisit and refine their existing IT processes. Configuration, change and compliance management processes need to take into account the dependencies between host and guests in a virtual environment.
Key Features
- Virtualization Visibility
- Includes graphical indicators of non-compliance issues across entire virtual environment. Dashboards provide a view of top 10 non compliant virtual environments, Host and Guest summaries, Virtual environment security posture.
- Security Hardening and Compliance Toolkits
- Provides out-of-the-box templates that address vendor and virtualization best practices, regulatory mandates and security hardening guidelines such as:
- CIS benchmarks for VMware ESX server
- VMware hardening guidelines for VMware ESX server and Virtual Center
- HIPAA
- FISMA
- GLBA
- Sarbanes-Oxley(404)
- DISA STIG
- Reporting
- Out-of-the-box reporting on virtual environment change log, virtual Host and Guest summary, storage allocation, network configuration and more.
- Guest/Host Relationship Correlation
- Supports management and security compliance of each Guest, Host and the associated relationships across the entire virtualized landscape.
- Visibility Into Dormant VMs
- Assesses the security posture of dormant VMs before they can compromise the integrity of the overall infrastructure. By knowing the security posture of VMs before they went dormant will help you determine if they are vulnerable.
- License Management
- Provides a summary of license usage in virtual environments to aid with license management.
- Secure Collection Architecture
- Discovers and collects granular configuration details for VM Guest machines and their Hosts.
Key Benefits
- Secure Enterprise Visibility
- A single pane of glass to view entire ESX server farm configurations, enabling you to control your entire ESX infrastructure.
- Ensure Continuous Compliance
- Proven approach ensures that hosts and guests remain in a continuous state of audit.
- Understand Security Posture
- Authoritative guidance that your security posture not only complies with vendor-specific hardening guidelines, but also with relevant regulatory mandates affecting your organization.
- Enforce VM Build Policy
- Detect and remedy guests that violate build policy such as minimum OS version.
- Control Virtual Sprawl
- Visually see the map of hosts and guests in your ESX farm to prevent creation of rogue virtual machines.