Stonesoft announced that it plans to support VMware VMsafe technology. By using VMsafe technology, Stonesoft’s virtual StoneGate appliances can provide an even deeper level of visibility and manageability to ensure the security of virtual environments.

VMware VMsafe technology provides application program interfaces (APIs) into the hypervisor so that select VMware partners can deliver solutions with fine-grained visibility into virtual machine resources. This technology makes it possible to monitor every aspect of the execution of the system and stop previously undetectable worms, rootkits and malware before they can infect a system.

“Our virtual StoneGate appliances use the StoneGate Management Center (SMC) to provide our customers with in depth, real-time monitoring and management of both physical and virtual networks,” said Paul Johnson, President of Stonesoft Inc. “Now that we are also taking advantage of VMsafe technology, we can deliver an even deeper level of visibility, granularity and correlation of the activity in the hypervisor, virtual machines and virtual networks to ensure a pervasive, efficient and optimized defense level for VMware virtualized infrastructures.”

As more and more organizations adopt virtualization to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of their IT operations, there is a growing need to ensure the security of their virtualized environments. “Stonesoft is committed to providing organizations with the best security solutions to protect their virtual environments. We have tested and certified the VMware hypervisor for interoperability with our virtual StoneGate solutions, and we are excited to leverage VMsafe technology in developing our virtual solutions. I am confident our customers will truly appreciate the benefits brought to them through our furthered relationship with VMware,” said Johnson.

The virtual StoneGate solutions stand out with their unified management and flexible deployment possibilities. Whereas regular, hardware-based devices work only with physical networks, the software-based virtual StoneGate solutions can be deployed in both virtual and physical network environments. In addition, all virtual StoneGate appliances can be managed from the same centralized management console as the other components in the network security solution. This brings organizations significant cost savings, flexibility and sustainability.