McAfee and Citrix Systems have delivered the first product of a joint collaboration announced earlier this year to make virtual desktop security simpler and more scalable for large enterprise deployments. Released today at the Citrix Synergy conference in Berlin, McAfee Management for Optimized Virtualized Environments AntiVirus (MOVE AV) has been specifically designed for Citrix XenDesktop, helping customers secure corporate data and applications delivered to virtual desktops running on servers in the datacenter.
McAfee and Citrix also previewed the next phase of their partnership, which will allow for the extension of McAfee MOVE to support millions of laptop users by integrating security directly into the Citrix XenClient hypervisor. XenClient, a core feature of Citrix XenDesktop, enables virtual desktops “to go” by delivering native performance to virtual desktops running directly on PCs and laptops.
With traditional desktop computing, security has often been an afterthought – an approach that cannot scale to protect enterprises from the changing security threat landscape in an environment where employees are increasingly mobile and are using their own devices to access corporate resources. Additionally, predicting their overall load in a virtualized environment can be challenging to model and capacity plan. Anti-virus protection not designed for virtual environments can make this task significantly more complex.
Desktop virtualization is quickly becoming a top strategic initiative for CIOs as they seek a more secure, flexible and cost-effective way to deliver Windows desktops and applications to business users in any location, over any network, and on any device.
The addition of McAfee MOVE to all XenDesktop virtual desktops – whether running on the server or in a local client-side VM – will simplify desktop security and increase user density by 60 percent through a “virtualization aware” centralized service where resources are optimized and intelligence is shared. For example, if McAfee MOVE encounters malware, it can process appropriate behavior based on a set of security policies on behalf of the guest attempting to access the file. Additionally, it will also update all of the other guests supported by MOVE. Having the flexibility and adaptive security to provide in-depth intelligence will open new opportunities to protect and provide flexible IT delivery methods to business users.
“Desktop virtualization is rapidly being adopted as the best way to solve critical business objectives of enabling virtual workstyles for users and increasing agility for IT. Simple and scalable security specifically designed for virtual environments is a critical requirement for mainstream adoption of desktop virtualization,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager, XenDesktop product group at Citrix.
“While traditional security tools and solutions can get in the way of maximizing the full power of virtualization, McAfee is providing optimized security solutions specifically designed for virtualized environments,” said Candace Worley, general manager, endpoint protection business unit at McAfee.