Introducing vSphere Platinum and vSphere 6.7 Update 1!

VMware is announcing VMware vSphere Platinum – a new edition of vSphere, as well as vSphere 6.7 Update 1 – the latest release of the industry-leading virtualization and cloud platform.

With the adoption of digital transformation, individuals and corporations are all leaning more on digital assets, digital identities, and digital channels to drive revenues and differentiate themselves in the market, which makes comprehensive security across infrastructure and applications of paramount importance.  As data security threats increase and regulatory pressure to control such risks grow, organizations are shifting from point security tools to embedded infrastructure solutions. Here are some key challenges and focus areas for customers, when it comes to IT Security

• Addressing security threats and securing applications are a top IT and business priority.
• Security threats are increasing, and becoming more sophisticated.
• Security needs to be enabled at the foundation of an IT architecture and across the entire environment, not just in one component or layer. IT needs to comprehensively secure – applications, data, infrastructure, and access.
• Security needs to be easy to operationalize in a seamless and transparent manner.
• Traditional security models and anti-virus products can be both ineffective and consume too many system resources. By the time an attack is detected, it is usually too late.

Introducing vSphere Platinum

VMware vSphere Platinum is a new edition of vSphere that delivers advanced security capabilities fully integrated into the hypervisor. This new release combines the industry leading capabilities of vSphere with VMware AppDefense, delivering purpose-built VMs to secure applications.

vSphere Platinum secures applications, infrastructure, data, and access with the combined capabilities of core vSphere and AppDefense. It enables a simple and powerful way to maintain existing workflows, while supporting collaboration amongst vSphere Admins, and Security, Compliance and Application teams; making for less disruptive response and remediation in a security incident.

Benefits for vSphere Admins

• Gain visibility into the intent of each virtual machine, and a detailed inventory of application assets and context.
• Understand how applications behave and be alerted to potential issues and deviations.
• Shrink the attack surface and reduce the risk of security compromise.
• Establish a simple and powerful way to collaborate with security, compliance and application teams.
• Get better visibility and protection with a simple, light-weight and scalable security solution, with no agents to manage, and minimal overhead.
• Use what you already own, understand, and run in your data center – vSphere – with its unique visibility, automation and isolation qualities.
• Play a larger and critical role in the security of your entire IT environment – Be the Security Admin

Key Features and Capabilities

vSphere Platinum delivers comprehensive built-in security and is the heart of a secure SDDC, delivering secure applications, data, infrastructure, and access.

Secure Data

• FIPS 140-2 Validated VM Encryption, and cross-vCenter Encrypted vMotion – Secure against unauthorized data access both at rest and in motion, across the hybrid cloud.
• Secure Infrastructure
• Secure Boot for ESXi – Allows only VMware and Partner signed code to run in your hypervisor.
• Secure Boot for Virtual Machines – Helps prevent images from being tampered with and prevents the loading of unauthorized components.
• Support for TPM 2.0 for ESXi – Enables hypervisor integrity by validating the Secure Boot for ESXi process and enables remote host attestation.
• Virtual TPM 2.0 – Provides the necessary support for guest operating system security features while retaining operational features such as vMotion and disaster recovery.
• Support for Microsoft Virtualization Based Security – Supports Windows 10 and Windows 2016 security features, like Credential Guard, on vSphere.
• Secure Access
• Audit Quality Logging – Enables authorized administration and control by providing high fidelity visibility in vSphere operations.
• Additionally, vSphere has deep integration and works seamlessly with other VMware products such as vSAN, NSX and vRealize Suite to provide a complete security model for the data center. To learn more about vSphere Platinum

I hope this has been informative and thank you for reading!