Search Results for: virtualization security

Neocleus today unveiled the next phase of its corporate strategy focused on enabling existing PC Lifecycle Management (PCLM), Security and Help Desk solutions to transform personal computers (PCs) into highly manageable, multi-purpose desktop environments, and dramatically improve security and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

Neocleus’ first phase focused on delivering a bare metal, client-focused type 1 hypervisor and piloting solutions to test this technology. The hypervisor provides a solid technical foundation for evolving client PC architecture, but alone is not enough; only with the ability to manage a client PC hypervisor through enterprise-class tools will the true transformation of the PC be realized.

With its next stage, Neocleus is providing enterprises a way to utilize current systems management infrastructure, protecting process and tools investments. The company is delivering NeoSphere, an extensible client virtualization platform that ties existing PC management systems with advanced virtualization technology. Using NeoSphere, independent software developers can rapidly create a new breed of virtualized client solutions that make it easy for enterprises to control, protect and repair the desktop.

The platform enables a new client computing model where, for instance, an anti-virus agent can run in a protected area outside of Windows, where it is impervious to malware attacks, or a help desk agent can troubleshoot Windows even if Windows is inoperable.

NeoSphere provides abstracted management and hardware resource services, exposed through virtualization programming interfaces (VPIs). NeoSphere allows different applications, agents and operating system instances to run in their own protected space, or “virtual machine.” The software agents and applications sit outside the confines and complexities of today’s PC architecture. The core of the NeoSphere platform is its Virtual Runtime Environment (VRE), which sits at the hardware level and transforms the computer resources into a highly flexible execution environment.

NeoSphere comes with the Neocleus type 1 client hypervisor (based on XEN); however, it is built so that tomorrow’s client hypervisors will work with it as well. It also includes a Virtualization Developer’s Kit, enabling virtualized client applications that abstract the complexities of the hypervisor and the hardware dependencies, reducing PC control to simple VPIs so that less code is needed.

nCircle today announced the release of new audience-specific security risk and compliance dashboards and enhanced auditing of virtual IT infrastructures.

The new dashboards are part of nCircle’s self-service security and compliance portal and provide role-based visibility into an organization’s IT governance, risk and compliance (IT GRC) processes. nCircle also delivers security and compliance auditing of VMWare-based virtual infrastructures, a key area of investment in today’s enterprises.

Suite360 now delivers the industry’s most advanced security risk and compliance analytics.

User-programmable dashboards deliver the right information to the right audience:

· Risk and compliance trends for executives

· Current compliance posture vs. target, with detailed drill down for auditors

· Instant visibility to security issues across the enterprise for IT security

· Prioritized remediation instructions with role-based asset views for IT operations

For the first time, enterprises can visit a central portal to get the actionable security and compliance information that matters to them. Asset views enable analysis of security and compliance audit data by any business dimension, including asset type, asset owner, geography or business unit. Annotation capabilities enable administrators to explain deviations directly in the reports for improved understanding by multiple audiences. Suite360 enables all IT audiences to view the security and compliance status of their networks and clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts and investments.

The use of virtualized infrastructure in the enterprise has grown rapidly in recent years and is now a critical tool for enterprises, enabling server consolidation, more efficient data center management and other cost reductions. However, the spread of virtualization has created new security and compliance issues, requiring continuous auditing of the virtual infrastructure to maintain security and compliance.

nCircle Suite360 now audits the full virtual infrastructure, from virtual machines to the hypervisor, on VMWare-based systems. Suite360 audits the configurations of an organization’s virtual infrastructure and compares them to Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks, or hardening guides, to ensure the security of virtual machines and their hypervisor. The CIS benchmarks are accepted best practices for secure operation of VMware virtual machines and hypervisors. Additionally, Suite360 can continuously monitor hypervisors and virtual machines to ensure configurations remain compliant with the “gold standard” build, making the administration of these systems considerably easier and more efficient.

A survey conducted by data management and storage vendor NetApp has revealed that overwhelmingly virtualization (70%) is the top priority for IT investment in 2010, and that awareness of cloud computing is on the rise. The majority of IT professionals (74%) now claim to have partial understanding of cloud storage, placing the technology firmly on the IT and business agenda.

The survey of more than 100 professionals revealed cost savings (22%) and a pay-as-you-go model (23%) as the most appealing benefits of cloud storage, as well as perceived security (29%) and integration (22%) issues as the biggest barriers to adoption.

“What this tells us is that cloud is here and top of mind for businesses,” said Dave Allen, UK MD, NetApp. “Just as virtualization has gone full circle from an abstract concept to a technology that more than 70% of IT professionals plan to implement this year, we will see cloud follow the same pattern over 2010. The basic knowledge foundations have been laid, the next step is for businesses to overcome barriers and understand exactly how cloud could work for specific data and applications.

Paragon Software Group, provider of data security and data management solutions, has released Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 Personal.

The program provides the user with the complete set of tools to easily perform any migration operation to the majority of virtual machines, including Sun Virtual Box, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual PC 7, VMware Player and Workstation 4.0-7.0 and Fusion 1.0-3.0.

The product includes the unique technology which can connect an offline virtual disk and work with it as if it is an ordinary physical disk performing various disk and other virtualization operations to significantly ease day-to-day usage of virtual machines. The user can easily achieve partitioning operations, exchange data between physical and virtual disks and perform other disk operations.

Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 Personal is the only solution which solves boot problems after an unsuccessful migration attempt by a third party. The program offers the easiest, intuitive way to migrate a Windows-based computer system to a virtual environment (P2V) and vice versa (V2P).

Main Features:

• Guaranteed support for any Windows operating system since Win2K (excluding server editions).
• Migrate a physical system to a virtual machine or convert backup image to a virtual disk.
• Recover the OS startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization by a 3rd party tool.
• Recover the OS startup ability after system migration to a different hardware platform.
• Migrate from one virtual environment to another.
• Migrate a virtual system to a physical environment.
• Exchange data between your physical environment and the virtual one or between a virtual disk and its snapshots.
• Hot processing of locked (in-use) hard disks to migrate a computer without rebooting and interrupting Windows.
• Makes the process of adding new drivers smooth and easy.
• Preview changes before they are applied on a handy disk partitioning map.
• Choose any destination to create virtual disks, including a network share.
• Transparent processing of virtual machine snapshots disks.

Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 Personal is available for $29.95.

Atempo, a provider of cross-platform data protection and archiving solutions, today announced enhanced deduplication capabilities and expanded virtualization support for Atempo Time Navigator, the company’s flagship high-performance backup and recovery solution.

The new deduplication features offer further usability and performance in optimizing storage systems and supporting remote and branch offices, while customers operating on virtualization platforms benefit from Atempo’s growing roster of platform support.

The enhanced block-level deduplication in Atempo Time Navigator is featured in the new version of the software’s Atempo HyperStream Server module. New usability capabilities include an enhanced graphical user interface for easier administration and configuration of the product and a new interface that displays administrator statistics on backup and deduplication history. Performance improvements include enhanced automation in the movement of deduplicated backup data from disk to tape, replication of a HyperStream server over the WAN, as well as the ability to perform data restorations from the closest HyperStream server for optimal speed.

Atempo Time Navigator’s new virtualization support continues the Atempo tradition of providing the broadest support for platforms and applications. The software features an enhancement of the VMware agent with vSphere support, as well as new Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen agents that will deliver full virtual machine backup and restoration capabilities.

Atempo HyperStream Server is a stream-oriented storage service that allows backup data to be sent to a storage server across high and low bandwidth connections, while performing block-level deduplication across and within the streams. The module effectively eliminates redundancy in storage media by identifying identical blocks of data on multiple systems and only backing up the changed blocks, significantly reducing both the amount of storage and the network bandwidth required. In addition, Atempo HyperStream Server supports extremely efficient block-level replication from one unit to another over local- or wide- area network connections, which combines the advantages of fast local restore and disaster recoverability for both data center and remote office backup.

Atempo Time Navigator is a secured, tiered and highly scalable heterogeneous data protection solution for complex, mission-critical environments. Through its unique time navigation feature, it supports high speed data restoration from any point in time, enabling quicker eDiscovery and improved business performance.

The software combines the best of data protection and storage security to enable companies to meet critical business requirements for data privacy, regulatory compliance and non-repudiated long-term retention of data. Its graphical user interface makes it easy to manage snapshots, replication, disk and tape backups, and recovery operations in addition to simplifying the management of multiple servers and remote sites.