Virtualization

What is Zero Trust?

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Zero Trust means “trust no device and trust no user.” It constantly re-evaluates access for every user and system. All devices and user identities undergo continuous multifactor verification. This approach enhances security by minimizing the attack surface and reducing the impact of potential breaches. Zero Trust acknowledges that threats can originate from both inside and outside the network perimeter. Infrastructure services often differ because they must run and connect when no other services are available. Infrastructure software like VMware vSphere uses features such as Secure Boot, Trusted Platform Modules, VIB signing and verification, and host attestation. These features build assurances that the infrastructure can be trusted in its current configuration. …

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Create a VM Template for Rocky Linux 9

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Midjourney rendering of Linux VM Templates

It’s fairly easy, but not entirely straightforward, to create a good Linux VM template on VMware vSphere. You’ve come to the right place, though! Let’s walk through all the steps needed to create a reliable, small, and secure VM template on VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation using Rocky Linux 9. Create a New VM First, we need a fresh VM. Make new VM the latest virtual hardware version you can. See “Upgrade VM Hardware Versions” for more discussion on this. Choose the right operating system. In this case, Rocky Linux is in the list. Alternately, you could choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 for EL-family Linux distributions. I create …

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Upgrade VM Hardware Versions

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There are varying opinions within the greater VMware community about upgrading VM hardware versions. Newer virtual machine hardware versions introduce new features, new guest OS support, better compatibility and performance with CPU vulnerability mitigations, better support for modern CPU features, better security defaults, and so on. Upgrading virtual machine hardware changes the virtual hardware presented to the guest operating system, just as if you placed a boot device from a physical server into a newer physical server. These changes can vary in risk, may require more than one reboot, and may require human interaction to complete. This forms the basis for many of the opinions that recommend leaving VM hardware …

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What is Virtualization?

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Midjourney rendition of the question "What is virtualization?"

At its core, virtualization is a technology that allows you to create multiple virtual environments on a single physical machine. These virtual environments, called virtual machines (VMs), act as independent computers with their own operating systems, applications, and resources, even though they share the same underlying hardware. Imagine you have a powerful server with ample CPU, memory, and storage capacity. Instead of dedicating the entire server to a single operating system and application, you can use virtualization software, known as a hypervisor, to create multiple VMs on that server. Each VM runs its own operating system and applications, isolated from other VMs on the same physical machine. Types of Virtualization …

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