5 Must-See Security Announcements From VMworld 2017

Live At VMworld

Security had a front-row seat at VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas this week. On Monday, the company announced a long-awaited application security offering, and multiple other security vendors also announced their enhancements to help secure the VMware Software-Defined Datacenter portfolio. Executives from VMware and its technology partners touted the importance of bringing security to the new world of applications, software-defined data centers, and the public cloud. For partners looking to help their customers secure public, private, and virtual environments, take a look at five must-see security announcements from this year's show.

VMware AppDefense

VMware led the way with security announcements at VMworld, rolling out its long-awaited cloud-based and virtual machine-based security offering. The company said the solution, formerly known as "Goldilocks" but now called VMware AppDefense, helps customers protect applications and infrastructure based on the VMware NSX software-defined networking platform. The platform includes a focus on applications, infrastructure security, and the overall ecosystem with technology vendor partnerships. Tying the platform to VMware NSX also allows for AppDefense to capture and discover applications and determine their behavior, detect something going wrong with an application, and respond to attacks on applications.

Carbon Black

Carbon Black announced it was teaming up with VMware to bring together the company's endpoint security solutions with VMware's new AppDefense offering. Carbon Black said AppDefense can now leverage the company's Collective Defense Cloud feed to help classify applications. Carbon Black said the combined solutions include capabilities for behavioral controls of virtual and cloud environments, orchestration and automation, and converged operations.

"With AppDefense, VMware is redefining security for the software-defined data center," said Tom Corn, senior vice president, security products, VMware, said in a statement about the partnership. "By working with Carbon Black, we are moving the industry toward a new security model and empowering customers to protect their virtualized environments from the latest advanced threats."

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks announced at VMworld that it had extended its Next-Generation Security Platform to the VMware Cloud on AWS, a move that brings together VMware's software-defined data center solutions with AWS and the Palo Alto Networks security platform. Palo Alto Networks said the move would help customers secure their VMware Cloud on AWS environments from attack with an integrated offering.

"With the availability of our platform for VMware Cloud on AWS, customers can securely migrate applications and data while transforming their software-defined data centers into a hybrid cloud architecture that combines scalability and agility with on-premise resources," Terry Ramos, vice president, business development, Palo Alto Networks, said in a statement. Palo Alto Networks said the integration launched on Monday starting with the AWS West region.

Fortinet

Fortinet announced on Monday that it had also extended its FortiGate Virtual Machine security offering to VMware Cloud on AWS customers. Fortinet said the launch brings together VMware's software-defined data center solutions with AWS and the FortiGate security solutions, giving them the benefits of Fortinet threat intelligence, operating system, and virtual, private, and public cloud security capabilities.

"Enterprises are increasingly adopting hybrid cloud architectures, integrating on-premises private clouds with advanced public cloud resources to take advantage of the scale and performance benefits, yet consistent security is a top priority. VMware and Fortinet have a long-standing relationship delivering virtualized security for software-defined data centers, and today we are extending our collaboration to VMware Cloud on AWS customers to provide the security control, visibility and segmentation capabilities required to seamlessly transition to hybrid cloud environments," John Maddison, senior vice president of products and solutions at Fortinet, said in a statement. Fortinet said the launch would first be available in the AWS US West Region.

Bitdefender

Bitdefender highlighted the integration between its GravityZone security platform and the VMware Software-Defined Datacenter technologies at VMworld. The company said its security platform, which is a certified VMware Ready Networking and Security solution, integrates with the VMware suite to simplify the securing of the platform. It said its capabilities include easier security manageability across public, private and virtual machines, automation, agentless deployment, and a seamless transition from VMware vCNS to NSX.

"In an environment of incessant cyberattacks, an organization's ability to protect data center workloads and prevent breaches is as important as maximizing the return on the infrastructure investment. Enterprises invest in Software-Defined Datacenter technologies to gain operational agility and efficiency while maximizing the performance and utilization of their data center infrastructure," said Harish Agastya vice president, Enterprise Solutions at Bitdefender, in a statement. "However, many data center security solutions on the market today force businesses to choose between security efficacy and data center performance. At Bitdefender, we ensure customers achieve both with our award-winning layered next-generation data center security that is built on an efficient, agile and scalable architecture."