As organizations chart out their virtual architectures, security still remains an afterthought, putting these networks at unprecedented risk. Stonesoft is an innovative provider of integrated network security and resilient connectivity solutions that are architected to work within a virtual environment. Unlike many of its competitor’s products, the software-based architecture of StoneGate Firewall/VPN can be deployed between virtual machines to monitor the traffic moving back and forth, providing security within the virtual environment.

Traditional firewall and VPN software appliances are effective for protecting against unauthorized access to physical servers via the network. However, since traditional appliances are built on proprietary operating systems, they are not easily separated from the purpose-built hardware. This rigidity makes it difficult to deploy these products within a virtualized environment.

Many traditional hardware vendors are creating workarounds or complicated connections to retrofit hardware-based security devices into the virtual realm. However, configuring hardware appliances to monitor and secure network traffic within virtualized environments creates an additional level of complexity that introduces more opportunities for security breaches. This also adds unnecessary costs for additional appliances and takes away from the potential savings of virtualization.

Some vendors are recommending VLAN tagging to protect virtual environments. In addition to further complicating network management, this is also error prone, does not scale well and becomes very tedious to maintain. In addition, there is no visibility into the environment and data must leave the virtual environment to cross zones, which is highly inefficient.

“StoneGate Virtual Firewall/VPN appliances include all the capabilities offered in our hardware-based appliances, including redundant ISP connections and granular policy control – just without the box,” said Paul Johnson, President of Stonesoft Inc. “StoneGate software runs on an integrated and secured Linux operating system, meaning the software can easily run anywhere, independent of the hardware.”

StoneGate Virtual Firewall/VPN appliances are currently certified to run on VMware’s ESX platform. However, the solution is flexible enough to work with any virtual platform. Demonstrating this flexibility, Stonesoft also announced that it has become a member of the VMsafe Technology Program to give customers greater visibility into virtual infrastructures.

In addition, all of Stonesoft’s appliances – both physical and virtual – use the StoneGate Management Center for monitoring traffic and managing security policies across various devices. Stonesoft is the only vendor that provides a single management center that offers comprehensive visibility across both physical and virtual environments. StoneGate appliances also feature simplicity of setup and resilient connectivity, which are key factors for customers evaluating virtual solutions.

According to Gartner(1), “We have seen cases where large corporations with an immediate need for a virtual solution have purchased from a smaller vendor – and because of the need for consistent policy enforcement across the logical and physical worlds, these firewall sales led to the displacement of incumbent firewall vendors used in the physical world.”