Kaspersky Lab Discusses the Future of Virtualization Security at Annual North American Partner Conference

At the company’s annual North American Partner Conference, Kaspersky Lab is previewing the newest additions to its portfolio of virtualization security applications.  The Kaspersky Security for Virtualization | Light Agent application is scheduled to be released within the Kaspersky Security for Virtualization solution in Q2 2014, and will include light agent support for the VMware, Citrix and Microsoft virtualization platforms.

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization | Light Agent will provide advanced anti-malware and network protection for virtual machines through a combination of a dedicated virtual appliance and small software agents.  By off-loading the anti-malware processing to the dedicated virtual appliance, the host network’s performance will not be affected, a clear improvement over deploying multiple redundant security agents on each virtual machine. In addition to advanced anti-malware protection, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization | Light Agent will also feature the company’s award-winning endpoint controls to apply easily-managed policies, such as application control, device control, and web content filtering, to virtual machines.

Kaspersky Lab’s virtualization security offerings have recently focused on providing agentless anti-malware and network security for virtual environments based on the VMware platform.  But with the addition of Kaspersky Lab’s new light-agent capabilities, the solution is now applicable to Citrix and Microsoft environments for the first time, in addition to VMware environments.  Kaspersky Security for Virtualization |Light Agent delivers benefits that offer clear advantages to the traditional agent-based approach, such automatic protection for all virtual machines to avoid the “instant-on” security gap associated with most agent-based protection.  Moreover, the unique architecture of Kaspersky Lab’s specialized virtualization security solutions offer dramatic performance benefits over traditional “physical” protection being applied to virtual machines.
With Kaspersky Security for Virtualization | Light Agent added to the company’s solution portfolio, Kaspersky Lab can offer a more complete and effective range of security solutions for specialized virtual environments than other vendors. The competitive advantages of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization | Light Agent, which will be proven by independent testing in the coming weeks, include lower performance impact on virtual infrastructure, and superior overall protection fueled by the individual Kaspersky Lab technologies — including exploit prevention and application control components — found within the solution.  For more information about how Kaspersky Lab’s current virtualization prowess compares to the competition, read the results of a group test conducted by The Tolly Group here.

Opportunities for Partner GrowthBy making light agent solutions available, Kaspersky Lab partners will be able to offer a variety of support options for all three of the primary virtualization providers – VMware vSphere, Citrix XENServer, and Microsoft Hyper-V – significantly expanding revenue opportunities for channel partners and protection options for end-users.  Investments in virtual infrastructure – at both the server and virtual desktop level - are set to be key area of spending across the IT industry for 2014, and as more mission-critical applications and data move to virtual machines, the need to secure this data will increase as well.  By integrating seamlessly within the Kaspersky Security Center administration console, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization can be managed from the same screen as Kaspersky Lab’s security for physical devices.

Kaspersky Lab’s virtualization security solutions offer a combination of security technologies, ease-of-management, and platform compatibility that is unmatched by any other vendor.  Kaspersky Lab will also offer financing options, marketing support, and flexible product licensing that allows partners to sell based on either the “per virtual machine” – which is based on knowing the exact amount of server and desktop licenses needed – or “per core” licensing based on the number of cores found in a customer’s virtualization hardware, which provides the end-users with flexible room to expand their network as needed.
More information about Kaspersky Lab’s virtualization security roadmap will be shared at the North American Partner Conference breakout sessions, and additional details will be shared prior to the formal availability of Kaspersky Lab’s new virtual security applications.