back to article VMware wants security industry to shrink so its ambitions fit into market

VMware's entered the enterprise security market and called for it to become more concentrated. The somewhat arrogant analysis comes from the top-down: CEO Pat Gelsinger's opening day keynote featured a slide full of logos most often deployed when vendors show off all of their most recognisable customers. VMware put a twist on …

  1. klaxhu

    quite a narrow view of the world if he thinks security is just what runs in some VM's

    1. K

      Agreed.

      The big problem I see between Cloud an On-prem at the moment is the disjointed security, I wish somebody would come up with a solution for that. Certain things you would take for granted with on-prem, such dropping a couple of Next-gen Firewalls to a core-location, or tapping a port to give traffic forensics etc.. Are very difficult or impossible in AWS, and AWS don't seem interested in offering a decent alternative.

      Instead what you get is, a few security policies groups to control port and IP access.. no IPS, DPS, DPI or App filtering. Everytime I think about this, I have 1 single thought "... Hey AWS, 2003 just called, they want their security methodology back.."

      If AWS offered the hypervisor capabilities of ESXi to customers on the normal EC2 platform, the world and cloud would be a much better place!

      1. thondwe

        Maybe AWS is dropping behind the likes of Azure if you want Firewalls, Packet Captures etc - vSphere + NSX, Azure... Maybe that's why AWS is interesting in the vSphere hosting business?

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          His image showed sections for hardware vendors too - not sure how that squares in with his 'Secure VM can do everything' world-view.

          Inconsistent is just the first word that springs to mind. Snake, Salesman and Oil are the next three.

        2. K

          Thats a good bet.. Given AWS's size these days, I'm surprised they don't make an offer for VMWare and absorb it (Not saying they should), but would put a rocket under the current crap which powers EC2.

  2. AMBxx Silver badge
    Pirate

    Admin Console

    I wonder if the admin console will need Flash?

  3. Dan Wilkie

    Great Metaphor...

    What kind of wierdo starts putting on warm sweaters when they're getting chased by bad guys. And who the fuck would keep putting them on until he was wearing 75?

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: Great Metaphor...

      Agreed. He needed a car analogy.

      Imagine you have a basic car, but in order to make it safe you keep having to add things to it from different vendors - such as airbags, ABS, crumple zones, parking sensors, automatic seat wipes, roll-cages etc.

      One day your car can't move because it's too heavy. That's a bad analogy because that car is now safe, but you get my drift :)

      1. The Count

        Re: Great Metaphor...

        Sounds like Microsoft's approach to Windows.

  4. Lotaresco

    Is there anything else...

    ... that Gelsinger doesn't understand, or is it just security?

  5. CAPS LOCK

    I can imagine the meeting...

    CEO: "We're brilliant at whatever-it-is we do, so we'll be brilliant at security."

    Everyone else: "Brilliant, you're a genius. Trebles all round."

  6. Fan of Mr. Obvious

    Know you competition

    It does not appear that Mr. Gelsinger knows his security competition. Whilst the image itself is pretty bad for my eyes, I see at least a few vendors that are playing in fields where VMware conveniently left out their logo. Perhaps more vendors covering 80% of the market than he thinks?

    And what makes VMware think that everyone is so unhappy with multiple vendors? Last time I checked, it was not such a bad idea to not put all the keys in the hands of a single vendor. Sure a single management console is nice, but a single finger pointing at a massive problem is out numbered.

    As for AppDefense, how many will be creating versions of acceptable behavior based on already compromised systems?

  7. asbenson

    VMWare-centrism

    It's difficult to take seriously. It's the type of view you'd get from every other major vendor...however, the vendors just don't live in the real world from a customer perspective...that is, one where VMWare fits just one facet of our needs.

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