VMware and DMZ
As with many IT shops, an on-going consideration is being discussed sharing a VMware ESX host with Internet and Intranet facing guests running Windows 2000 Web sites. What is the risk of having the same ESX host, serving up Internet facing content, while having other guests on the same host serving up Intranet type Web and applications services? What are the proposed methods in using VMware in a DMZ?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    When you register, my team of editors will also send you the latest expert resources covering all areas of server virtualization, such as platforms, architectures and strategies, server hardware, managing virtual environments, application issues and more.

    Cathleen A. Gagne, Senior Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchServerVirtualization.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchServerVirtualization.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

The risk for such a venture is proportionate to the amount of trust you place in VMware ESX's networking stack. If you place the Internet and Intranet hosts on a separate Virtual Switch (or port group) and turn off promiscuous mode, IP spoofing, and MAC spoofing, then you will have architected the most secure networking design possible with ESX. However, if you are wary of the goings-on of how VMware has implemented all of this under the covers, then an alternative design would be to segregate ESX servers not just by access to shared storage (the typical segregation decision), but also by role (Internet, Intranet). If you would like to know more please feel free to email me. Hope this helps!

This was first published in November 2007