Product Watch: IBM Unveils New Virtual Server Security Offering

IBM today introduced IBM Virtual Server Security for VMware vSphere, a software product designed to help organizations secure and protect their virtual server infrastructures.

The software will help safeguard virtual server environments and allow businesses a more secure path for transitioning critical assets to virtual enterprise data centers, IBM says.

The new security capabilities "are required because of reduced visibility and control that come with the addition of more information technology layers" in virtual server environments, IBM says. "Given this changing landscape, traditional security made for physical computing environments becomes inadequate as a sole solution," it says.

The new IBM Virtual Server Security for VMware vSphere helps address these concerns, providing protection for every layer of the virtual infrastructure, including the hypervisor, operating system, network, applications, server-based virtual desktops, virtual machine, and traffic between virtual machines, the company says.

By integrating with VMware VMsafe technology, the new software provides clients with better visibility, security granularity, and scalability in their growing virtual data centers, IBM says.

The new capabilities include Virtual Network Access Control (VNAC) to limit network access from a virtual server until security posture is confirmed, rootkit detection and prevention, virtual infrastructure monitoring and reporting to identify vulnerabilities, and autodiscovery to provide visibility and control of the virtual infrastructure.

IBM Virtual Server Security for VMware vSphere will be available in December.

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