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Mar 10
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I spent last week at the RSA 2010 show. It was a different experience for me as this time I was a guest of our new partner, TippingPoint. Overall it was a great show and I was very excited to hear multiple people tell me that the work we are doing with TippingPoint is the most interesting and innovative thing they saw at the show. Its great to get some end-user validation.
Another interesting thing that struck me was how much has changed with regard to thinking about virtual security. Reflex had a virtual security appliance back in 2006. When that product came out and we started talking about the new risks that virtualization was introducing, customers and other established vendors would stare at us like we were the crazy man on the corner predicting the end of the world. Last week as a I walked the aisles of RSA, I now see that all of the big security vendors have seen the light and are now preaching the same set of issues. Everyone has their own take on what the solution should be, but its great to see that the importance of virtualization security is mainstream. I think everyone now understands that virtualization brings a unique set of challenges and maintains many of the traditional security risks. Things like visibility, configuration management and control, compliance, and network segmentation all need to be considered. Since we started down this path, Reflex has grown from being network centric to offering multiple feature sets that help the virtualization administrators and security teams work together to address these issues.
We also got quite a few questions about the product and partnership and a few of them were common enough to warrant some answers on our blog.
Q: Is the TippingPoint vController software that incorporates Reflex technology or an private label of Reflex VMC?
A: Today, vController is a TippingPoint branded private label version of the Reflex VMC with some enhancements to allow the redirection of packets to a physical IPS device. This is done via the familiar vTrust policy interface with a new rule that when matched will forward that traffic to the IPS. The rule can be very granular, down to port/protocol, so that only the desired traffic gets inspected. vController is limited to the functions Reflex provides under our vTrust feature set (but that does include the ability to use VQL!) This means that other, more virtualization management centric functions found in the Reflex VMC are not available in vController. But here is the good news, the product and the business relationship exist to allow customers that see the value in the full Reflex product to upgrade their vController to a FULL version of Reflex VMC and retain the TippingPoint integration….Best of both worlds. We have designed the software so that upgrades will be non-invasive and only require a simple license key addition to enable the functionality.
Q: Is there going to be a virtual IPS offering from TippingPoint?
A: The official answer will come from TippingPoint, but based on the following image and the messages that were communicated publically at the RSA show, I can tell you that the current plan is to virtualize all or some of the TippingPoint IPS technology and provide it as part of a virtual appliance. The same vController software would provide the policy and rules to decide which traffic would get inspected by a virtual or physical TippingPoint IPS. The image from theTippingPoint booth clearly shows both options.
Q: What about network segmentation and firewalling? Can the vController provide those functions?
A: The short answer is Yes. Those functions are present in vController which means that the creation of virtual network zones with granular policy for network segmentation, based on VQL, is also available. And yes, the Reflex vTrust solution is a stateful firewall implementation.
Q: How much does it cost and when will the product be available?
A: This is one that I must defer to TippingPoint. I believe it will be sooner rather than later, but delivery schedules and product pricing questions should be directed at TippingPoint.
Q: What if I’m one of the smart, forward thinking people that has already purchased the Reflex VMC product, can I get the TippingPoint functionality?
A: Yes you can!. Once TippingPoint vController is available, it will be possible to purchase the appropriate license keys to enable that functionality and leverage the existing installation of Reflex VMC. (Note: An upgrade to the most recent release of the Reflex VMC will be required).
Twitter: @Reflex_Mike