Sourcefire announced the expansion of the Sourcefire 3D System to support the Xen 3.3.2 and 3.4.2 virtualization platforms. Now supporting the two leading virtual environments – Xen and VMware – Sourcefire ought to enable customers with diverse virtual platforms to further protect these investments, while also leveraging these resources to increase intrusion prevention capabilities.
The Sourcefire Virtual 3D Sensor and Sourcefire Virtual Defense Center now provide Xen environments with all the functionality originally available for VMware. Users can deploy Virtual Sensors to inspect traffic between two or more Xen or VMware virtual machines, while also using physical Sourcefire 3D Sensors to inspect traffic going into and out of a virtual environment.
According to Sourcefire this support for both Xen and VMware makes it easier to deploy and manage the Virtual Sensors at remote sites where physical resources may be limited or where little rack space remains in the datacenter. This release also ought to provide additional flexibility to enterprises and cloud computing companies, which rely on a variety of virtualization platforms to support specific requirements.
The Virtual Sensor provides simultaneous execution of Sourcefire IPS, RNA (Real-time Network Awareness) and RUA (Real-time User Awareness) functions. Customers can deploy the Virtual Defense Center to monitor any combination of up to 25 virtual or physical 3D Sensors. They can also opt to monitor their Virtual 3D Sensors from the same physical Defense Center they use to monitor their physical 3D Sensors. (Source: Sourcefire, Inc./GST)