TippingPoint Introduces New Products To Secure Virtualized Next-Generation Data Centers

PRESS RELEASE

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TippingPoint, a leader in network security and a division of 3Com (NASDAQ: COMS), today introduced the TippingPoint Virtual Controller (vController), a software solution that extends the company's best-of-breed network security into virtual environments, providing customers with uncompromised security into all parts of the data center. Harnessing security research from TippingPoint's Digital Vaccine' Labs (DVLabs) team and the Zero Day Initiative, the vController provides a comprehensive data center security solution that addresses the unique challenges of securing both virtual and physical infrastructure. The vController is the first product in TippingPoint's Secure Virtualization Framework, the company's vision for securing all elements of the data center and a core element of 3Com's Secure Network Fabric, which combines security technology from TippingPoint with LAN infrastructure equipment from H3C, the enterprise networking brand of 3Com.

"With so much invested in this infrastructure and attacks like Conficker threatening to take it down, I need to be completely confident in the security technologies protecting my systems."

Rapid expansion of production and mission critical, virtualized workloads is driving organizations to define the virtualization platform itself as mission critical. As a mission critical platform, organizations must address unique virtualization security challenges while also ensuring virtual infrastructure meets, or exceeds, their existing compliance requirements and security controls.

"We've consolidated more than 50 percent of our physical servers onto just 12 hosts " this means we have some of our most important systems running in a virtual environment," said Kris Jmaeff, information security systems specialist at the Interior Health Authority, a British Columbia government agency. "With so much invested in this infrastructure and attacks like Conficker threatening to take it down, I need to be completely confident in the security technologies protecting my systems."

TippingPoint vController Provides Immediate Security for Virtual Traffic

The SVF software will enable organizations to pass virtual machine (VM) traffic " including host-to-host traffic " through a TippingPoint' Intrusion Prevention System. This product takes advantage of the specialized processing performance built into TippingPoint's N-Platform, including a newly redesigned and more powerful Threat Suppression Engine (TSE) that can effectively inspect more traffic. Since the traffic is passed through the IPS, it is inspected and filtered with TippingPoint's industry leading Digital Vaccine service, which uses security intelligence from TippingPoint's DVLabs, as well as its external research program the Zero Day Initiative, to provide data center organizations with the most up-to-date network protection.

"Security attacks are increasingly targeted and financially driven. As enterprises move production applications with their rich information to virtual environments, they represent an increasingly attractive target for cybercriminals," said Paula Musich, senior analyst with Current Analysis. "As more mission critical data moves into a virtualized infrastructure it is imperative that virtual environments meet the same stringent security requirements as their physical counterparts."

Management of the security policies across physical and virtual environments will also become a key requirement in purchase decisions. TippingPoint's vController includes integrated management capabilities that are compatible with VMware's VMsafe API via the Reflex Systems vTrust technology and Virtual Management Center (VMC). This provides customers with a more granular level of visibility and control into communication within the VMware virtual environment.

TippingPoint SVF Provides Future-Proof Security Throughout the Data Center

With the launch of the vController, TippingPoint is introducing its vision for the Secure Virtual Framework. As part of the future product set for this Framework, TippingPoint intends to release a virtual IPS, allowing customers to run a TippingPoint IPS inside the virtual infrastructure. This will enable greater mobility without special provisions required for maintaining security protection, as is common for disaster recovery scenarios, or when using vMotion for dynamic site-to-site VM management.

"Virtualization is about efficiency and securing the virtual data center should be as well," said Alan Kessler, president of TippingPoint. "From what we have seen with our customers many early virtualization projects were limited in scope thus "point" virtual security products were acceptable. However, as the footprint of virtualization within the data center expands, customers are demanding a unified solution that provides that ability to enforce security policies regardless of infrastructure type."

The TippingPoint vController will be generally available in April 2010. For further details, please visit http://www.tippingpoint.com/virtualization

TippingPoint is announcing several new technologies aimed providing comprehensive security in the data center. For further details on these announcements, please visit the TippingPoint news release page.

About TippingPoint and 3Com

TippingPoint is the enterprise security brand of 3Com Corporation, a $1.3 billion global enterprise networking solutions provider that sets a new price/performance standard for customers. 3Com has three global brands—H3C, 3Com, and TippingPoint—that offer high-performance networking and security solutions to enterprises large and small. TippingPoint leads the advancement of network security with a modern network security platform and intrusion prevention system (IPS), purpose-built to protect today's next-generation data center network from evolving, global security threats. TippingPoint helps organizations reduce security operating costs while ensuring maximum business continuity. For more information on TippingPoint, please visit www.tippingpoint.com, or the press center at www.tippingpoint.com/press.

Copyright 2010 3Com Corporation. 3Com, 3Com logo, H3C, H3C logo, Digital Vaccine and TippingPoint are registered trademarks of 3Com Corporation or its wholly owned subsidiaries in various countries throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective holders.