VMware would like to announce the availability of the final release of the vSphere 4.0 Security Hardening Guide. This version incorporates the extensive feedback from the VMware community on the previous draft release, which was published in January. We would like to thank all the people who took the time to go through the draft release and provide their comments.
vSphere Hardening Guide provides guidance on how to securely deploy vSphere 4.0 in a production environment. The focus is on initial configuration of the virtualization infrastructure layer, which covers the following:
- The virtualization hosts (both ESX and ESXi)
- Configuration of the virtual machine container (NOT hardening of the guest OS or any applications running within)
- Configuration of the virtual networking infrastructure, including the management and storage networks as well as the virtual switch (but NOT security of the virtual machine’s network)
- vCenter Server, its database, and client components
- VMware Update Manager (included because the regular update and patching of the ESX/ESXi hosts and the virtual machine containers is essential to maintaining the security of the environment)
