It is no secret that virtualization is revolutionizing the data center, the desktop and the very fabric of IT. My friend Hoff has been on the soapbox for a while now on this topic and he has many excellent posts on the subject. Just about every pundit and security person has weighed in with their feelings on virtualization as well. With VMware's announcement of VMsafe a few weeks ago and the impressive list of partners getting behind it, you would think that the leader in virtual machines has staked out the first movers high ground in terms of securing virtual enviroments. However, I am not quite so sure of that.

One obvious drawback is does this work on only on VMware environments. What about Citrix or Microsoft? Also does this set of API's really allow us to truly security VM environments. Not just VM to non-VM, but VM to VM? What about allowing you to leverage VM inside of security applications to bring greater functionality to existing security solutions? I don't hold myself out as any kind of expert on this (yet), but I don't see VMsafe providing the answers and functionality that we need there. I think it is a great start and gives security vendors a place to start in terms working with the hypervisor to security tomorrows virtualized mission critical environments.

I am interested in your thoughts and comments on this. Please feel free to put your two cents in on this discussion. As I dig deeper, I would like to know what others are thinking on this.