According to Gartner, virtualization is the number one priority for
CIOs worldwide in 2010. Given the low budgets and an increasing
pressure to do more with less, CIOs across the world are moving to
virtualization to increase their server utilization ratios from
15-20 percent to as high as 80 percent. However, security concerns
are still holding back a large number of server virtualization
deployments. Trend Micro is eyeing this emerging market and has
become the first security vendor to offer security for virtualized
environments.
Post the acquisition of Third Brigade, Trend Micro has integrated
into its portfolio the former’s Deep Security tool that helps
enterprises secure servers running in virtual environments of all
major vendors such as VMWare, Microsoft and Citrix. The solution
which was recently launched in India helps enterprises protect
confidential data while enabling compliance with important
standards and regulations such as PCI, FISMA and HIPAA. The
solution has features such as packet inspection, firewall,
integrity monitoring and log inspection.
“Virtualization has become a reality in India. However, CIOs
are still wary of moving their critical workloads to virtual
environments due to security concerns. Today less than 20 percent
of workloads reside on VMs,” says Amit Nath, country manager,
India and SAARC, Trend Micro. Nath believes that a secure virtual
server environment will help in fueling the growth momentum for
virtualization in the country.
Trend Micro is also planning to launch a similar product for
desktop virtualization or VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) by
September this year as an extension to its OfficeScan product. This
would be followed by the launch of the Deep Security product
portfolio for private and public clouds by November 2010. “We
are seeing huge number of deployments on VDI in the country,
especially in the education and government sector. We expect VDI to
grow at a faster pace and the associated security concerns around
it. Cloud adoption is still low in the country and hence we first
want to leverage on hot trends like server and desktop
virtualization.”
Considering security is the biggest obstacle in the large scale
adoption of cloud computing, security products such as the one
offered by Trend Micro can build greater confidence in the
cloud.