Some of our lucky Outcomex employees had the chance to attend VMware’s 2017 EVOLVE Transform Security Conference held in Melbourne on Thursday 15^th June. The conference explored security techniques that span endpoint through application server.

Here are 5 key pieces of information we picked up at the conference :

1. The demise of the firewall perimeter and attack on security in application delivery layers.

“The end-to-end of architecting security into your application delivery layers” – Matt Berry, VMware Systems Engineer

The firewall perimeter as we know it has gone and the proliferation of “bring your own device” has encouraged malicious actors to spread to all devices. VMware AirWatch combats these threats, implementing a comprehensive end-to-end security model involving micro-segmentation from device application to data centre application. This means that each data centre resource has its own firewall and users can now architect security to secure mobile workflows.

Christopher Campbell, 2016, “Air-watch BLOG”

2. VMware is able to keep your traditional applications safe in an external data centre by providing a single policy model that can be consumed no matter the location.

“Keep your traditional applications safe in someone else’s Data Centre” – Brett Dayton

If you are considering a hybrid cloud, security is key. VMware can help by extending an on premise security policy/posture to someone else’s data centre, giving the same levels of control for cloud services as on-premise. This enables the security posture to be applied, no matter the location of the workload. VMware then showed how you can build further efficiency, by automating the network and security aspects of an ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS) offering with a Cloud Management Platform (CMP) ensuring that the apps are secure from day zero.

3. Security techniques have advanced to isolate virtual machines based on vCentre objects, delivering security through a hypervisor.

“Easily protect traditional apps in your data centre”- Michael Hanline, VMware Senior Systems Engineer

You can now access an integrated platform for managing third-party security applications from a single interface. This platform enables partners to implement their own security control in a virtual environment. Implementing granular control, this integrated platform is managed from a single interface but distributed everywhere.

4. The vRealize networking solution works seamlessly with a distributed firewall.

“Easily protect traditional apps in your data centre” Michael Hanline – VMware Senior Systems Engineer

If you have been successful in virtualising your non-portable applications, the next necessary step is to apply firewalling in order to monitor and control a secure virtual environment. The vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) works alongside their distributed firewall to see the various traffic paths and application interactions between VMs.

5. Use NSX to secure workloads and new Cloud Native Applications while maintaining existing operating platforms.

“Secure your new, cloud-native apps” – Scott Stickells, Specialist Systems Engineer

Reassessing your security policy in regards to modern cloud-native-apps (CNA) is a necessary step. Using NSX with cloud-native-apps protects these new applications as they are deployed building security into the application and data centre. By doing so, developers can now continue to build their code without focus on infrastructure.

A big thank you to VMware for having us. We look forward to being a part of beneficial conferences such as this in the future!