Tenable Network Security recently announced the general availability of a virtual appliance for the Nessus Vulnerability Scanner.
Tenable’s Nessus Virtual Appliance for VMware is a pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run software application packaged with the operating system inside a virtual machine. This is available to Tenable ProfessionalFeed subscribers as a free download and the virtual appliance is easily deployed in under 10 minutes — reducing infrastructure cost/complexity, simplifying deployment and maximizing ROI in VMware environments. The combination of Tenable’s Nessus with VMware virtualization technologies allows organizations to deploy Nessus scanners using physical as well as virtual servers.
With server consolidation, disaster recovery and cost considerations thrusting server virtualization into mainstream datacenter operations, IT operations personnel are beginning to worry about security. The virtual appliance for Nessus brings significant benefits to the marketplace. First, instead of building a server to host Nessus and deal with the installation process, Tenable customers can download and operate Nessus on a dedicated VM and reduce the complexity of installation and configuration. Second, as new images of the Nessus VM are made available, moving to them saves time by using an image that has been tested. Finally, Nessus can be positioned on a pre-configured virtual server in locations of your network that would not regularly host a scanner but can be on an as needed basis allowing for less disruption to the network.