|
Virtualisation and security – the two-edged sword |
|
|
|
Source: Freeform Computing - Posted by Anthony Pell
|
All new innovations in IT are a double-edged sword – with the benefits come challenges and unintended consequences. Not least server virtualisation, which does have a number of security advantages over running software directly on servers. While it’s worth considering these, it’s also worth weighing them up against the challenges, particularly given the relative immaturity of the technology.
To be fair, virtualisation has been around ever since the dawn of computing – what is an electronic computer other than a virtual environment? I did get into trouble a few years back for crying foul when Microsoft claimed: “We’ve been doing virtualisation for many years,” but to an extent they were right – as soon as there is layering or abstraction in a computer system, we have something that could be termed ‘virtualisation’. So, we have virtual memory, virtual disks, and indeed virtual machines.
It’s this latter version of virtualisation that’s garnering most interest currently, and to be more specific still, virtualisation when applied to X86 (i.e. commodity) servers. Until this side of the millennium, server computers didn’t really have the horsepower to run multiple, virtual machines (mainframes did of course, but were still a bit pricey – a factor which is notably changing). Now, with multi-core processors that build in virtualisation hooks (essentially, enabling instructions to be run by the virtual machines in a fashion which makes them pretty much as fast as running on physical machines), server virtualisation has crossed into the mainstream.
Read this full article at Freeform Computing
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment! |
