Intel Security and VMware Announce Integrated Solution

Collaboration enables advanced threat protection of the increasing volume of east-west data center traffic not inspected by security controls today

Intel Security and VMware, Inc. today announced an integrated solution that leverages a Software-Defined Data Center approach and the VMware NSX™ network virtualization platform to automate the distribution and enforcement of Intel® Security’s McAfee® Network Security Platform (NSP), providing Intelligent Intrusion Prevention services (IPS) for the protection of east-west traffic within the data center. Enterprise and Service Provider customers will benefit from simplified orchestration, chaining and delivery of the same advanced services inside the data center that Intel Security provides for north-south traffic at the perimeter of the data center.

Customers immediately benefiting from this solution include healthcare cloud provider ClearDATA, whose customers require HIPAA compliant cloud hosting, backup, disaster recovery and information security services. Meeting these rigorous demands requires ClearDATA to provide advanced threat protection uniformly for all data center traffic coming into the data center, as well as within the data center without increased complexity. The integrated solution allows ClearDATA to automate the provisioning and delivery of IPS services for protecting traffic inside the Data Center and scaling these services dynamically in response to customer demand.

“Security is a critical concern for our health care customers who must deliver patient services quickly, in a secure manner. We use VMware NSX network virtualization to simplify and automate the delivery of Intel Security’s McAfee NSP through our new Cloud. This allows us to offer our customers the same advanced levels of threat protection for all their data center traffic, with security controls aligned with each application,” said Matt Ferrari, Co-Founder & Former CTO, ClearDATA.

The new integrated solution includes the McAfee NSP IPS-VM100-VSS (a new IPS-VM Series model designed for interoperability with VMware NSX), McAfee Network Security Manager, Intel Security Controller and VMware NSX network virtualization platform.

The Intel Security Controller transparently runs as a broker between the VMware NSX infrastructure and the Intel Security’s McAfee NSP. Working in conjunction with the VMware NSX Manager™, it enables network IPS protection to be dynamically and automatically provisioned to help protect intra-VM traffic based on the defined policies and requirements allowing administrators to experience a “plug-in” like environment that enables support for micro-segmentation, security profiles, workflows, policies, and groups.

“This collaboration between VMware and Intel Security delivers clear value for our mutual customers, enabling them to have consistently high levels of threat protection for traffic both inside the data center and at the data center perimeter. The tight integration between VMware NSX and Intel Security’s McAfee NSP means security controls follow application workloads, allowing customers to dynamically scale security services,” said Tom Corn, Senior Vice President, Security Products, VMware.

“With the Intel Security and VMware integration, McAfee NSP provides integration within VMware NSX to allow customers to apply advanced security capabilities for the protection of east-west traffic in the data center, which makes up the majority of traffic in these environments. The McAfee NSP takes advantage of the VMware NSX platform’s distributed micro-segmentation enforcement and simplified automated provisioning, creating a zero-trust environment to automatically help protect organizations’ assets against advanced threats,” said Raja Patel, General Manager for the Network Security Business Unit, Intel Security.

VMware, NSX Manager and VMware NSX are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.