VMware NSX-T Data Center in Evaluation for Common Criteria EAL4+ Certification

VMware NSX-T Data Center 2.x is now under evaluation for Common Criteria certification at Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ with BSI, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security. Common Criteria is an internationally recognized standard (ISO-15408) that defines, validates, and assures security features and capabilities of IT security products. To see the evaluation status for VMware NSX-T 2.x, visit the German BSI certification website and reference certificate # BSI-DSZ-CC-1099.

VMware NSX-T was introduced to help organizations meet the stringent security demands of containerized workloads, multi-hypervisor, and multi-cloud. And this latest milestone for NSX-T 2.x reinforces VMware’s continuing commitment to deliver secure software to our customers. During the Common Criteria certification process, VMware NSX-T will undergo a thorough and rigorous evaluation methodology, with testing performed by a commercial Common Criteria Evaluation Facility under the oversight of the Certification Body. The Common Criteria certification acts as a seal of assurance for the federal government, its agencies, contractors and other organizations and assures that the product complies with strict security requirements specified within the designated level.

Within the VMware NSX portfolio, we have a long history of investing in certification efforts. For example, VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.x also Continue reading

What’s New in VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2

With this latest release, VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2 continues to improve overall efficiency of the network, enhance security with Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation, and deliver operational enhancements to the NSX platform. Here are just a few highlights of what’s new.

Multicast Routing Support

With VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.2, NSX Logical Routers now have the capability of routing IPv4 multicast traffic.

The location of the Virtual Machine multicast receivers (identified by their hypervisor, Logical Switch and Virtual NIC) is discovered thanks to IGMP snooping within the NSX domain. The Edge Service Gateway (ESG) runs PIM sparse mode with physical routers and coordinates with the Distributed Logical Router (DLR) in order to provide both ways multicast connectivity from Virtual Machines to the outside world.

For added multicast replication performance in the VXLAN Overlay, NSX leverages Layer 2 multicast in an underlying physical infrastructure running IGMP snooping. 

Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation

New Layer 7 Application Context

VMware has been taking security to the next level with Context-Aware Micro-Segmentation, better securing application using the full context of the application. This latest release includes the following new Layer 7 Application Context:

• EPIC – Epic EMR Continue reading

Simple, Efficient, and Modern: VMware NSX introduces new HTML5 UI

Along with the advancements in context-aware micro-segmentation and network virtualization, we are also continually raising the bar on making VMware NSX simple to deploy, manage, and operationalize at scale – and that, of course, involves a responsive and easy-to-use HTML-based UI to access VMware NSX functionality.

With VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4.1, you can now access all NSX installation and security functionality through a responsive HTML-based vSphere Client, including Distributed Firewall, Service Composer, Application Rule Manager, and more. This modern interface does not have any dependencies on browser plugins (e.g. Adobe Flash), has a more minimalistic look-and-feel, and loads so much faster! Beyond the immediate aesthetic improvements, here’s a quick look at some of the key enhancements to how we’re simplifying the NSX user experience.

NSX Firewall – Better Visibility and Efficient Rule Management

Given how feature-rich the NSX Firewall page is, our usability designers focused extra attention on streamlining the day-to-day tasks of creating, managing and troubleshooting firewall rules.

For starters, at the top of the Firewall page, we’ve introduced a new Status Bar and elevated table-level actions (like Publish and Save) to their own dedicated Toolbar. Now, at a glance, you can immediately Continue reading