Endpoint Security: Become Aware of Virtual Desktop Infrastructures!

I completed a pretty neat whitepaper for Trend Micro just before leaving for a couple of weeks of travel. Here is an abstract of the exec summary and you should be able to get the rest at Trend Micro.


Virtual desktops infrastructures, VDI, present IT with the unique opportunity to fundamentally improve the way desktops are purchased, deployed, managed, and secured. Organizations are attracted to VDI’s promise to reduce operating costs, provide users with wide choices of devices, improve application performance, and enhance corporate security against malware and loss of sensitive data. The benefits are compelling, with survey data showing approximately 70 percent of CIOs reporting VDI projects planned for 2010.

However, enterprises find while scaling from proof-of-concept projects to full deployment that desktop security software that is not optimized for VDI causes storage and network contention that significantly degrades virtual machine densities. The Ogren Group recommends the following guidelines in selecting endpoint security to help organizations preserve the benefits of VDI:

Choose endpoint security that is specifically designed for VDI performance. Endpoint security needs an architecture that avoids performance drags from storage and network resource contention.

Require intelligent use of cloud-based security to keep agent bloat from affecting VDI density. Evaluate approaches that scale by blocking attacks in the cloud, and do not steadily increase processor demands for VM-based endpoint security.

Insist on VDI-aware approaches allowing endpoint security to simplify administration of virtual and physical desktops. Since organizations will need to operate a mix of physical and virtual endpoint security, the security software should be optimized for each environment for user satisfaction, and ease of administration.

Trend Micro’s OfficeScan and Deep Security products are designed for use in VDI environments. The Ogren Group finds that Trend Micro exceeds requirements for protecting the business while enabling IT to realize the benefits of virtual desktop infrastructures.