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Virtualization

Defending Virtualized Environments—Today and Tomorrow

Virtualization is exploding. We don’t need to waste your time by explaining why. But we do want to answer a pressing question commonly asked by Sourcefire customers. How can Sourcefire help defend virtualized environments?

Defending Virtualized Environments Today

The Sourcefire 3D System as it exists today is well suited to defend both physical and virtual environments. By placing physical Sourcefire 3D Sensors at ingress and egress points to your virtualized systems, Sourcefire can detect, alert and block threats that emerge from inside and outside your virtualized environment.

New in the 3D System 4.8 release is a capability to help combat the ever-growing concern over “VM Sprawl”. This phenomenon relates to IT personnel, and in many instances end-users, creating and deploying new virtual machines (VMs) without following established configuration and change management procedures and internal IT acceptable use policies, or AUPs. This introduces considerable risk to any organization by publishing virtual hosts that may be vulnerable to certain types of attacks.

To help combat VM Sprawl, Sourcefire can now detect VMware virtual machines and classify them as such within RNA host records. This enables IT Security to identify new hosts in real time as either physical or virtual and helps to ensure compliance with configuration management, change management, and acceptable use policies.

Sourcefire’s Vision for Supporting Virtualized Environments

Organizations simply can’t afford to invest in one intrusion prevention platform to protect physical hosts and another to protect virtual hosts. It just doesn’t make sense. That’s why Sourcefire is aggressively investing in current and new products to help our customers defend both physical and virtual systems from a unified management framework. Our customers must have the tools necessary to work smarter—not harder—to defend all network components against today’s emerging threats.

Sourcefire is also looking at ways IT can leverage existing virtualization systems to deploy Sourcefire 3D components. This will provide new flexibility by helping customers to extend 3D protection to far corners of a global network, including small branch offices and retail locations where local IT resources may not exist.

Sourcefire and VMware – Partnering for Success

Sourcefire is a proud member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partnership (TAP) program and is also a VMware VMsafe Partner. Once generally available, the VMsafe API will enable Sourcefire to gain even deeper insight into VM-to-VM communications useful for intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS) within a VMware ESX or ESXi system.

For more information regarding Sourcefire’s support for virtualized environments, please contact Sourcefire or a member of the Sourcefire Solutions Network.