VMware vSphere 7 Foundations – VCP

At VMware we talk a lot about intrinsic security, which is the idea that security in a vSphere environment is baked in to the product at a deep level, not sprinkled on as an afterthought. Security is a huge focus of vSphere 7, even though when we talk about the new features it’s usually about certificate management improvements, vSGX, Identity Federation, and vSphere Trust Authority. All of the massive improvements to patching and upgrades, via vSphere Lifecycle Manager and Update Planner, are security features, too. If you cannot patch you can’t secure your environment from vulnerabilities that are discovered, and operational issues like bugs and driver issues (theoretically speaking, of course). 🙂 Operational issues affect availability, which is directly related to security, and it is all tied back to risk.

One of the ways you see vSphere 7 improving intrinsic security is by allowing vSphere Admins to manage deeper into the infrastructure itself. You see Lifecycle Manager now able to work together with tools like Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter and HPE iLO Amplifier to manage server firmware as part of the remediation cycles. This is a huge deal because there are vulnerabilities in server & management controllers, too, and those are not fixed by simply updating ESXi. We need to make sure the hardware gets updated, too, so that it is a solid and safe foundation for us to build our infrastructures on.