The Daily Network Monitor

I admittedly stole the headline from the direct and welcomed article written by Art Wittman, Editor for Network Computing, writing on the topic of security concerns with virtualization.

Well-balanced security professionals know how organizations can dynamically balance the parallel goals of IT performance with security concerns. Still, the “negatites” (negative, often academic technologists) roam in the background preferring we all revert to manual calculations and typewriters in the name of uptight and non-attainable security standards.

The latest attack from the “negatites” focuses on the progressive world of virtualization. Virtualization is a technology I personally believe in and I believe it will be one of the more “game-changing” technologies this generation of IT buyers and sellers will participate in.

(more…)

Cisco over the next five years plans to radically change how it sells and delivers router and switch software, in part by making that software more virtualized and modular.

Cisco’s intention is to decouple IOS software from the hardware it sells, which could let users add enhancements such as security or VoIP more quickly, without having to reinstall IOS images on routers and switches. The vendor also plans to virtualize many of its network services and applications, which currently are tied to hardware-specific modules or appliances.

This shift would make network gear operate more like a virtualized server, running multiple operating systems and applications on top of a VMware-like layer, as opposed to a router with a closed operating system, in which applications are run on hardware-based blades and modules. Ultimately, these changes will make it less expensive to deploy and manage services that run on top of IP networks, such as security, VoIP and management features, Cisco says.

High-level details of the road map were delivered in a session at Cisco’s C-Scape analyst conference last week in San Jose by Cliff Metzler, senior vice president of the company’s Network Management Technology Group.

Read the whole story here.