SHARE
Follow this article on Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Bookmark and Share
Home >> Information Architecture >> Service Oriented Architectures

Sourcefire to rollout virtual security tool for VMware machines

Sourcefire to rollout virtual security tool for VMware machines

By:  Ellen Messmer  On: 24 Jun 2009 For: Channelworld India 

Sourcefire 3D System 4.9, now in beta, can be used to inspect traffic between two physical hosts, two virtual machines or between a physical host and a virtual machine

Sourcefire is readying its first intrusion-prevention systems designed to run as software appliances in VMware's virtual machine environment.

Sourcefire 3D System 4.9, which is expected to ship by year-end, includes the Virtual 3D Sensor and the Virtual Defense Center. The products will run as virtual appliances on VMware's ESX and ESXi servers, as well as on the cloud-computing platform vSphere 4.0.

Many thrifty managers believe that the same technologies currently used to protect conventional physical servers can simply be extended to virtualized environments, but security experts say this could lead to being trapped by threats in several areas, including software, administration, mobility, the operating system and network visibility.

Sourcefire 3D System 4.9, now in beta, can be used to inspect traffic between two physical hosts, two VMs or between a physical host and a VM, according to Steve Piper, Sourcefire's senior director product marketing.

The first virtual IPS appliances that Sourcefire will ship will deliver speeds ranging from 20M to 250Mbps. This is "the low end" for IPS speeds today, Piper acknowledges.

A couple of months ago IBM launched a hardware appliance to deploy service oriented architecture and WebSphere applications in an internal cloud computing environment.

Piper says there are some basic concerns regarding a virtual appliance -- which is simply software tailored to run in a specific VM environment -- as compared with a physical appliance that includes software on a dedicated hardware device.

"There are a lot of unknowns," Piper says, because the virtual appliance is likely to share a physical server with other VM applications and there may be wide differences in deployment and usage of resources.

The main concern is the performance of an IPS sensor running as a virtual appliance, he says. As the Sourcefire virtual appliances become available, "we encourage customers to test for performance," Piper says.

In its first iteration of virtual appliances, Sourcefire is not implementing VMware's VMsafe security API, because it's "not ready for prime time" due to performance issues related to Sourcefire's projects, Piper says.


Sign up for our Newsletters
Tags: Sensor, virtual appliance, speeds, network visibility
Close X












Close X
Print |  Views: 1333   |   Rating:offoffoffoffoff  (0 votes)
Rate this article on a scale of
1 to 5 stars,5 being the best.



Close X
Page 1

Ellen Messmer Ellen Messmer is a contributor to the International Data Group (IDG) News Service, which publishes global technology stories from bureaus around the world to more than 300 publications in more than 60 countries.

Related Content

IBM launches internal cloud deployment appliance
IBM launches internal cloud deployment applianceCloudBurst will roll out SOA and WebSphere apps into an internal cloud environment. But is there a difference between “internal cloud” and “utility infrastructure"?
How a city improved its IT disaster recovery plan
How a city improved its IT disaster recovery planAustralian city and its integrator used virtualization to cut its servers from 24 to four, dramatically decreasing the amount of time needed for disaster recovery
New dimensions in intrusion defence
New dimensions in intrusion defenceSourcefire’s open-source IDS engine, Snort, has long been the gold standard of signature-based intrusion detection systems. Snort’s commercial sibling, Sourcefire 3D, takes Snort a step further by adding passive vulnerability assessment and service anomaly detection to the mix.
A cleaner green message
news from across the pond that a uk environmental group has set up a forum to help it folks navigate the morass of green-oriented messages coming from vendors is a truly positive step. there's no doubt that "green" is hot these days, partly because vendors have been chirping about how great they are at protecting the environment, often offering advice that conveniently fits into their c
Green is the new ethics
had an interesting and enjoyable conversation with professor norman ball recently for the final instalment of a series we're doing in conjunction with the university of waterloo. although the talk veered down many paths, the official discussion was around ethics and governance, and one point professor ball made that really jumped out at me was a short and simple one:"green is the new et
Virtual Appliances: Has Everyone Lost Their Mind??
the media is buzzing about virtual appliances (va’s) as company after company issues a press release about some fancy new virtual appliance that will protect your virtual machines from each other.personally i think its geneous. now i can sell you an “appliance” and because its an “appliance” you’ll inherently assume it’s a good thing, and as a seller i have close to zero cost of goods.
blog comments powered by Disqus