The age of virtualization now upon IT is also prompting IT managers to look at new ways to do things, particularly in terms of security.
Grand Island-based Automated Document Solutions (ADS) is in the business of taking large volumes of records from hospitals and healthcare providers to convert them into electronic form for automated records management, typically maintaining the data on the customer's behalf. Mike Crews, director of IT, said ADS has virtualized its servers in-house using VMware, adding it's made configuration for data center disaster-recovery easier.
ADS also teams with hosting provider Host.net to upload data from healthcare organizations for retention in storage and backup. Host.net a few months ago added a new set of managed security services for hosted VMware-based servers under a partnership with security firm StillSecure.
The round-the-clock managed services — actually provided by StillSecure through its own security operations center for VMware servers housed at Host.net — make use of the VMware VMsafe APIs to access the virtual-machine hypervisor for round-the-clock security monitoring, management, firewall, intrusion detection and prevention within the Host.net cloud-computing platform.
Called StillSecure ProtectPoint VSS, it costs $US250 per month to secure 10 virtual machines, with intrusion detection and other services adding a couple of hundred more. Crews says he's started using the service on the handful of virtual-machine servers that ADS houses at Host.net because it's contributing to the security of his customer's data. Having the option for round-the-clock managed security services is an incentive to consider much broader use of hosting, Crews says.