Guest blog by David Silverberg, Global Alliances Director, Trend Micro
In today’s high pressure, ultra-competitive business environment, organisations are demanding smarter, more mobile ways of working. Gone are the days of monolithic Windows desktop environments where costs were predictable and securing corporate data relatively straightforward. These changes brought with them a whole new set of challenges for IT departments tasked with delivering end-user computing in an efficient, agile and secure manner.
That’s why VMware designed Horizon; to provide users with access to physical, virtual and mobile endpoints from any device. It’s also why we’ve been working closely with VMware on integration to make sure Horizon customers can benefit from Trend Micro protection no matter where or how they use the platform.
IT at a crossroads
IT departments are at the centre of a user-generated storm. They need to support BYOD on a multiplicity of devices and platforms, delivering an ever-increasing volume of data in a secure, compliant and efficient manner. Users want control over how they access business applications and they have high expectations regarding performance…they want and demand a great experience. With this backdrop, it’s not surprising that many IT managers are struggling to deliver end-user computing quickly, efficiently and at low cost.
Enter Horizon 6
VMware Horizon 6 offers a new approach to these problems. It offers a device-independent workspace, providing centralised, single sign-on access to apps, files and desktop images from a wide range of mobile devices and computer platforms. With Horizon, IT can finally offer strategic innovation securely, while enabling a happier and more productive workforce. Horizon 6 includes greater manageability to ease the delivery of new workspaces and applications, as well as support for hybrid cloud environments, among many other benefits.
Trend Micro secures Horizon customers
All these benefits would be of little value, however, if they couldn’t be offered securely – and that’s where Trend Micro comes in. We’ve been a VMware partner for many years now; in fact, Trend Micro was the first company to offer agentless anti-malware to VMware customers. We’ve been working closely ever since to deliver maximum protection,and Horizon 6 is no different. Trend Micro offers four products to Horizon customers: Deep Security, OfficeScan, Mobile Security and Control Manager.
- Deep Security uses VMware APIs to deliver agentless security tightly integrated into the hypervisor. Agentless security eliminates major challenges associated with physical protection including: resource consumption, which can increase capex and opex; performance-degrading security “storms”; “instant-on gaps”, which can introduce vulnerabilities; operational overheads associated with reconfiguring agents. Deep Security also has full visibility of your dynamic virtual environment. In a non-persistent VDI setting, this means it won’t lose track of your VMs once users log-off and then count them as new endpoints when staff log-on again.
- OfficeScan provides security for thin terminals and other physical endpoints. It can now conduct a full system scan 40 per cent faster than before and offers a 50 per cent boot up time improvement – vital for thin terminal environments.
- Mobile Security has also been designed with performance in mind and has an extremely low footprint. It integrates mobile device management (MDM), mobile security, data protection, and application management capabilities.
- Trend Micro Control Manager centralises threat and data protection policy management. This is useful for Horizon customers demanding visibility into multiple layers of their IT infrastructure.
VMware Horizon 6 is ushering in a new era of end-user computing. More and more organisations are realising that a device-independent workspace can help overcome major IT challenges around mobility and application delivery, supporting business agility and meeting heightened end-user expectations. But as they take this journey, organisations also need to consider the security implications, and turn to a trusted VMware partner like Trend Micro to keep sensitive corporate data safe.
