How Virtualization Improves Your Company’s Security

Virtualization can offer many solutions and benefits to companies, but the issue of system security has always been an ominous cloud hanging over the ultimate decision of whether or not it is right for your business. Since the initial success of using virtualization as a tool for companies, security professionals have doubted the risk-reward ratio for implementing virtualization strategies to businesses. However, the truth is that virtualization technology actually has inherent security advantages. Some of those built-in virtualization security benefits include isolation, segmentation, and service insertion and chaining.

Isolation
By default, virtual networks are separated from the underlying physical infrastructure of a network as well as other virtual networks. This principle of isolation is the foundation of most network security and one of the core features of network virtualization. Virtualization provides isolation for the physical network, meaning that any attacks on the virtual network will not compromise the underlying physical infrastructure.

Isolation also means that virtual networks operating on the same hypervisor (or virtual machine manager) can have overlapping IP addresses, which allows for isolated development, testing and production of virtual networks. Even though the term “isolated” may be misleading, the isolation feature simply means that virtual networks can work simultaneously with less security risks.

Segmentation
The idea of segmentation is similar to isolation, except in the case of segmentation, the isolation takes place on a smaller scale where different tiers within a multitier virtual network are segmented from each other. Virtualization offers the big advantage of built-in segmentation. Traditional methods of achieving network segmentation is extremely time-consuming and highly prone to security breaches due to human error. Since network segmentation is a core capability of network virtualization, the need for segmentation configuration and maintenance of the physical firewall is eliminated.

Insertion, Chaining & Steering
All of the fancy terms like “insertion”, “chaining” and “steering” really just mean one thing: easier implementation of more advanced, third-party security services. The many inherent security advantages of virtualization are not always sufficient means of IT protection for certain businesses. In many cases, clients will choose to leverage a more advanced, third-party security service to protect their company.

Despite this, virtualization can make adding those third-party security services easier and more effective due to the inherent ability to distribute and enforce those services throughout the virtual network. In other words, virtualization technology enables security services, like next-generation firewalls, to be available locally on every hypervisor (VMM) in the network.

The security benefits of virtualization, discussed here, are not a fully exhaustive list, as there are even more ways that virtualization technology can reinforce your company’s system security. Virtualization can secure IT systems on the server, network and desktop level, making it a common software solution for many companies. VMware Certification Marketplace can provide you with all of the materials and information you need to become your company’s go-to virtualization expert — so get started at www.vmwarecertificationmarketplace.com today!

How Virtualization Can Help Firms Save Money

These days, we have all swapped our address books for cloud-based contact management, and our albums stuffed with 4x6 photos for iCloud albums. Virtualization is also one of the most buzzed about trends in IT departments, and is often touted as being able to save significant funds and resources for a company. Today, we will explore what virtualization is and whether it’s the best choice for your company.

The two important types of virtualization to distinguish between are server and desktop virtualization. Typically, server virtualizations are implemented first,  dividing the server’s memory and processing capacity from separate machines into one physical machine that simulates the former operating system. Desktop virtualization creates an infrastructure where all client data and desktop software is stored on a server, as opposed to on each individual machine. This allows administrators to centrally manage these machines while users are able to use their own computers and operating systems.

The primary savings — drivers influencing a company-wide virtualization — are hardware, maintenance, energy, facilities and downtime savings. While the servers that power your virtual work environment are more costly than the previously used machines, having one virtual server is still cheaper than having many physical servers. Additionally, having multiple machines not only takes up considerable space in an office but also requires periodic maintenance, allowing employees that were previously occupied repairing the machines to respond to other tasks. The servers themselves are also an energy drain and can save money with utilities costs.

Clearly, a company can realize many cost-saving strategies with server virtualization, but each employee can realize tangible time savings if desktop virtualization is implemented. Because information is cloud based, the business can create backup shapshots of an application and duplicate it elsewhere. If a computer fails, instead of sending the machine out for repair, it can often be repaired via the virtualized desktop in a matter of hours, saving productivity.

While virtualization can streamline many processes for a company and drive efficiencies in the long-run, it requires certain initial implementation costs. Take a look through our helpful guide below to see if the benefits of virtualization might make it the right decision for your organization.

Is server virtualization right for my company? (Source: GCN)

• Are key infrastructure resources such as data center space or power capacity nearing limits?
• Are you planning a server consolidation project?
• Is your average server CPU usage rate below 30 percent? Is there an increasing rate of new server provisioning?
• Do you need to run legacy applications that require obsolete hardware environments?
• Do you need to run application management in a test or development environment?

Is desktop virtualization right for your company? (Source: GCN)

• Is my organization facing challenging in providing individual PCs?
• Does my organization have a mobile workforce?
• Does my organization maintain a close partnership with contractors and outsourcers?
•  Do frequent updates to custom software require manual installation?
• Is there significant turnover, mobility or reassignment in the end-user community?
• Do users require access to tools supported only on different desktop operating systems?

If you’ve answered yes to a majority of these questions, then perhaps virtualization is right for you, and there is no better place to start on your pathway to being a virtualization expert than www.vmwarecertificationmarketplace.com.