With A Little Help From Its Friends, vArmour Introduces Multicloud Security Architecture

VArmour is among a new crop of innovative startups developing the next generation of security solutions for the cloud. But in the current threat environment, no vendor should go it alone.

That's why vArmour worked with a coalition of dozens of partners comprised of customers, channel partners, infrastructure vendors and other security developers to define a set of guidelines for hybrid cloud security, as well as a "pathway" channel partners can follow.

The startup, based in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday unveiled its Multicloud Security Architecture -- a broad, vendor-agnostic framework for deploying security solutions across highly distributed computing environments.

[Related: 10 Cloud Security Trends To Watch]

The company spearheaded development of the architecture several months ago, responding to the sophistication of attackers and the need for a federated defense that integrates multiple technologies and principles.

"The security world is largely based on architectural models we invented two decades ago," said Keith Stewart, vArmour's vice president of products. "The idea that there are perimeters, there are walls, the good guys live on the inside of the wall and the bad guys live on the outside, this notion that I can create some arbitrary location and put a wall around, it is out of date."

Hyper-converged infrastructure vendor Nutanix is one collaborator on the project, as are several security partners, including RiskIQ, Synack, Centrify and BrightPoint Security.

Together, the collective of companies is called the vArmour Alliance Partner Program. They will continue working together to advance the architecture, Stewart said.

But the component channel partners are most interested in is the "pathway", which describes the steps involved in implementing the architecture.

"Having a vision of an end state is one thing," Stewart said. But partners drive business "by turning that into actionable, practicable projects."

To complement that architectural vision, vArmour simultaneously bulked up its own portfolio with a few new products.

Among them is a platform for sharing information across customer data centers, offering a global view of attacks and behavioral anomalies so as to catch threats early and prevent multicloud attacks.

Another new feature to vArmour's core security products are customizable threat visualizations and dashboards.

And working with partner Nuage Networks, vArmour added the ability to deliver its solution in an OpenStack environment.

The company launched its channel program in May, and is working with three large partners: Atos, Big Tech and EVT.

Dan Lowden, vice president of marketing at vArmour, told CRN the feedback from the global solution providers was a critical aspect of the project.

"We've gone both deep and wide to share this before making the announcement to make sure it's very well-vetted and a lot of people provided input into it," Lowden told CRN.

Sean Catlin, chief technology officer at Atos, said in a statement that security is the biggest barrier to cloud adoption.

"Within Atos, this is what we call a digital accelerator, enabling IT transformation," Catlin said of the new effort.

Yuan Wang, practice manager at EVT, said in a statement, ’In this massive virtual and cloud transformation, security needs to be built in and the only way to do this is through a software-based distributed security system."

PUBLISHED NOV. 17, 2015