Thursday, 17 May 2012
Schwan Foods secures data with virtual server security
Schwan Foods secures data with virtual server security
By Beth Schultz, Network World | Oct 19, 2011
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PrintWhen it comes to sampling innovative technology, Schwan Foods, a multibillion-dollar frozen food producer, digs right in.
The Marshall, Minn., company became an early adopter of VMware ESX Server technology, beginning beta tests in 2001 and launching its formal virtualization project in 2002.
Schwan went on to become one of VMware's first enterprise licensees and by 2008 had virtualized two-thirds of its servers, says Cory Miller, the company's senior IT operations manager.
Schwan's virtual server infrastructure today comprises 55 ESX hosts running between 700 and 800 virtual machines. In addition, 44% of the company's 18,000 desktops are virtual, Miller says.
No wonder Schwan began hankering for virtualization-layer security years ago.
When Schwan began its virtualization implementation, it decided to run VMware's ESX on bare-metal hardware rather than selecting a hypervisor that would sit atop a Windows or Linux operating system.
That was a way to avoid having to worry about operating system patches or security flaws affecting the hypervisor, Miller says. "Still, initially, we used our virtualization for a lot of transactional data but not for credit-card processing or other sensitive data," he adds.
By 2005, Schwan felt comfortable moving sensitive data into the virtual environment. It used traditional physical firewalls to mask, protect and segregate user environments across the development, staging, quality assurance and production networks, Miller says.
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