Altor’s purpose-built approach to virtual data center and cloud computing protection was created with high-performance security enablement in mind. The packet processing engine at the core of Altor’s solution leverages the efficiencies of hypervisor-based packet processing. In the case of Altor security for VMware environments, the VMsafe APIs provided by VMware allow access to the hypervisor kernel. Altor used the APIs to deliver a certified interoperable engine that shims inside the hypervisor.
Altor certifies each new version of its software for compliant operation with the VMsafe APIs. Although our “fast-path” approach is much more complex to engineer, its impact in customer environments is significant, delivering cloud computing protection and wireline security throughput without impacting virtualization’s ROI.
The graph below shows the capacity benefits of conducting security processing in the hypervisor kernel. The end result is VM host capacity that is not impacted by the introduction of enterprise-grade deep inspection monitoring and security.
