Kathy Gibson at VMworld in Barcelona — As digital disruption permeates business, the very nature of work is changing.
Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, points out that industries as diverse as agriculture and manufacturing have changed radically.
“In the past, education was about read, write and arithmetic in education; now it’s read, write code and arithmetic,” he says.
At the heart of this transformation is the ability to deliver applications, he says.
“The VMware vision of any device running any application from any cloud with intrinsic security has now been expanded to transform the telco network.
“The cloud world and the network world are getting closer than ever before. And the device is now not just human-connected, but with IoT it is any device.”
Gelsinger reminds delegates that centralisation of IT has been a force over the last decade; but now we are seeing intelligence move back towards the edge.
“The cloud to edge is where the physical world meets the virtual world.”
In the workplace, he says, the goal is simply to connect people to apps — but this is more complicated than it looks.
“This results in confusion for users, and complications in how you operate your environment”
VMware’s Workspace One is about putting together all these elements.
Gelsinger says it has three key value propositions:
* Apps and identity are consistent
* There is consistent management and security for apps on-premise and in the cloud — any cloud
* They run across a broad ecosystem of devices — mobile and desktop.
Organisations spend millions on security – but the number of breaches in increasing
“We in the industry have failed out customers,” Gelsinger says. “So we need to melt the security into the infrastructure; we need to have an integrated ecosystem where people work together; and we need to have proper cyber hygiene.”
Possibly the most important of these is cyber hygiene, Gelsinger says. He believes most breaches could be avoided simply through the application of good cyber hygiene.
The five pillars of cyber hygiene are least privilege, micro segmentation, encryption and consistent patching and upgrades. “If you do these things we you would not be targeted.”
The imminent introduction of GDPR is also top of mind for European companies, he adds.
The current way of securing platforms is through the methodology of what Gelsinger calls “chasing bad”. But “ensuring good” would be a better solution.
VMware’s AppDefence captures the intended state, adds machine learning and APIs for industry to create the VM Manifest of “good”.
If there are any anomalies to this, the system is able to detect it almost immediately, and react in realtime.
In terms of the integrated ecosystem, VMware works with partners to secure devices, networks and servers.
“Chasing security through secure infrastructure, an integrated ecosystems and cyber hygiene, we can truly deliver security throughout the system,” Gelsinger concludes.
VMware established the Mobile Security Alliance to bridge the gaps between existing legacy security tools and provide a foundational platform for securing all mobile endpoints across an enterprise. There are now 23 partners across six categories, including the addition of authentication and analytics.
Workspace ONE provides purpose-built application programming interfaces (APIs) for the security ecosystem to integrate with the platform. With security solutions from MSA partners and Workspace ONE, customers benefit from a modern security platform that protects against targeted threats across devices, users, apps, and data; both in the cloud and on-premises.
Workspace ONE is the core platform for a modern security architecture with application and device security essentials natively built-in. The solution bridges advanced, third-party security technologies together so customers can benefit from:
* Broad ecosystem interoperability: By using Workspace ONE, organizations can use a single solution for deploying device management and other third-party security agents and network profiles. This allows customers to choose their security partners that meet their organisation’s unique needs and secure all endpoint platforms across the enterprise.
Leveraging trusted data and shared insights from MSA partners, integrated into Workspace ONE, can help customers take the next step on detection and remediation of security threats.
* Build on top of existing security investments: Customers do not need to ‘rip and replace’ their various security solutions in order to implement Workspace ONE. Workspace ONE can unify a customer’s security ecosystem by pulling solutions from MSA partners together into a comprehensive security strategy.
* Address data security gaps: As customers prepare for new compliance requirements, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), they will need to address data security gaps. Workspace ONE, with integrations from MSA partners, features security and data protection capabilities that provide policy creation and enforcement of role-based access to data, apply identity verification and management, and enable device or end-user data deletion.