VMware Launches Service-defined Firewall

VMware’s new security approach will focus on applications more than infrastructure, with a broadening portfolio of software-based solutions that span the cloud to the end user.

The new VMware Service-defined Firewall is an innovative approach to internal firewalling that reduces the attack surface for on-premises and cloud environments, using security that is an intrinsic part of the infrastructure.

Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, products and services, VMware:“Applications are more distributed, deployed across multiple private and public clouds, using many different types of infrastructure and accessed from many different devices. Security sprawl – too many products, agents, and interfaces deployed across an organization – creates complexity for security management. VMware’s strategy is to remove the complexity inherent with security today and deliver a security approach that is intrinsic from endpoint to cloud.”

VMware believes the industry needs to shift from a model centered on chasing ‘bad’ to one focused on ensuring ‘good’, and to focus on applications rather than infrastructure.

The VMware Service-defined Firewall solution takes a completely different approach to firewalling that focuses on assets that enterprises know well—applications they themselves have deployed—rather than scrutinizing the unknown. It works on bare metal, VM and container-based application environments, and will support hybrid cloud environments such as VMware Cloud on AWS and AWS Outposts in the future.

“Intrinsic security takes advantage of the unique attributes that are built in to the virtualization platform, allowing businesses to create very new and unique security services. The new VMware Service-defined Firewall is focused on internal network firewalling and changes the game by validating known good application behavior, rather than chasing threats.”