EMC Extends Security And Compliance In Cloud Computing

New Solution from RSA Security Division Helps Customers Accelerate Virtualization of Business-Critical Applications by Enhancing Security and Compliance of VMware Infrastructure

August 31, 2010

8 Min Read

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- VMWorld 2010 -- EMC (NYSE: EMC) today unveiled the RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance for comprehensively managing security, risk and regulatory compliance of cloud infrastructures, helping increase customer confidence to virtualize business-critical applications.

"Security is a top concern organizations have about moving critical business applications to the cloud," said Jon Oltsik, Principal Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "Even with all the benefits cloud computing provides, CIOs will continue to be wary until there is a way to manage security and compliance with the same level of assurance that is available today with physical data center environments. With today's announcement, EMC has made an important first step in addressing this fundamental concern with security in today's growing virtualized and cloud infrastructures."

Featuring an easy to use dashboard based on the RSA Archer(TM) eGRC platform, the solution is designed to give organizations a complete assessment of security and compliance posture across their VMware virtual infrastructure. This allows customers to centrally manage security across both virtual and physical infrastructures using RSA Archer. The dashboard integrates with a library of more than 100 VMware-specific controls such as administrative authentication, that map to the most current global regulations such as PCI-DSS and HIPAA to ensure best practices for deployment. The solution also integrates with the RSA enVision security information and event management platform to provide a more comprehensive assessment of security events from across the enterprise.

"Demonstrating compliance on virtualized platforms has been a labor-intensive and highly complex process, particularly as many of our customers require FISMA compliance," said Chris Day, Chief Security Architect, Terremark Worldwide, a leading global provider of managed IT infrastructure services. "We've given input throughout the design of the RSA solution and fully support their shared vision with partners VMware and Intel. Using the RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance will enhance our ability to assess the security of the virtual infrastructure and help the customers that choose Terremark for their cloud infrastructure respond to compliance audits."

RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance

The RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance helps enable organizations to rationalize a multitude of compliance requirements, control frameworks, standards and best practices into a set of centralized security policies that can be applied to virtual infrastructure. Simple dashboards are designed to make it easy to visualize security and compliance posture. Through automated assessments and simple workflows, the solution helps streamline the process of managing tasks between security teams that define policies and IT operations teams responsible for implementing those policies.

Capabilities delivered as part of the RSA solution include:

-- Dashboard views based on the RSA Archer eGRC platform designed to enable fast and accurate assessment of security and compliance posture across physical and VMware virtual infrastructure.

-- Top-Down Visibility for Control and Compliance: The RSA solution includes a comprehensive, centralized library and ready reference of security controls within the RSA Archer platform. This library has been expanded to cover more than 100 VMware-specific controls that map the most current, global regulations such as PCI-DSS and HIPAA. New software available with RSA Archer automates the measurement of several VMware configuration elements to simplify the task of measuring compliance. RSA enVision is being enhanced to add further intelligence to the RSA Archer platform by updating the compliance assessments with security-relevant events. RSA enVision collects security events from an ecosystem of products including the RSA Data Loss Prevention suite, VMware vShield, VMware vCloud(TM) Director, VMware vCenter(TM) Configuration Manager, EMC Ionix , and HyTrust appliance to enrich the compliance reports provided by the RSA Archer platform.

-- Process Automation for Managing Remediation of Security Policies: The RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance leverages automated workflow and notification processes in RSA Archer to simplify the tasks of remediating security issues.

"Our customers are excited about the opportunity to continue extending and optimizing their use of virtualization but are hesitant unless they can deliver proof of compliance against security standards such as PCI or HIPAA and VMware best practices," said Bret Hartman, Chief Technology Officer of RSA, The Security Division of EMC. "Today RSA is delivering the first step to give customers both the capability and confidence to extend their VMware deployments to handle business-critical applications while providing a simpler and easier way to help ensure compliance for cloud infrastructures."

Industry Collaboration Leading the Journey to Trusted Cloud Infrastructure

The RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance is the first in a series of steps to deliver on the vision of security and compliance for cloud infrastructure which EMC outlined at RSA Conference 2010 in conjunction with key partners Intel and VMware.

At VMWorld 2010, Booth 1000, EMC will feature demonstrations of the RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance and will also show a technology preview demonstration for how the solution will evolve in the future to leverage VMware vSphere(TM) and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT) to ensure hardware root of trust and isolation of regulated workloads.

RSA is contributing actively in the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Consensus Assessments Project for developing an open question-set, based on the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix, for security assessment of cloud services. When this work is complete, the RSA solution will be enhanced to offer tenants a way to assess the security of cloud service provider environments and their internal datacenters using RSA Archer.

"Intel is working with VMware and EMC to enable a hardware-based root of trust for the cloud," said Boyd Davis, Intel Vice President & General Manager, Data Center Group Marketing, "We're excited to see RSA taking the first step in delivering products and solutions that support our shared vision."

"Our collaboration with RSA is designed to help customers deploy cloud environments that provide comprehensive security up and down the virtual stack," said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. "RSA's solution ties security controls to higher order compliance objectives, including collecting and correlating security and compliance events across the cloud infrastructure and key security services delivered through VMware's vShield (TM)."

The RSA Solution for Cloud Security and Compliance and the RSA SecurBook for solution deployment best practices will be available in Q4 2010. In addition, strategic services from the RSA Security Practice of EMC Consulting can guide customers on the approach best suited to their business and operational objectives.

About RSA

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps the world's leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges. These challenges include managing organizational risk, safeguarding mobile access and collaboration, proving compliance, and securing virtual and cloud environments.

Combining business-critical controls in identity assurance, encryption & key management, SIEM, Data Loss Prevention and Fraud Protection with industry leading eGRC capabilities and robust consulting services, RSA brings visibility and trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform and the data that is generated. For more information, please visit www.RSA.com and www.EMC.com.

RSA, EMC, RSA enVision, RSA Data Loss Prevention and RSA Archer are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. VMware, VMware vCenter, VMware vCloud, VMware vShield, VMware vSphere and VMWorld are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (iv) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (v) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vi) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (vii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (viii) component and product quality and availability; (ix) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) war or acts of terrorism; (xii) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (xiii) fluctuating currency exchange rates; and (xiv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

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