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Securing a Virtual World

IBM’s z/VM is a proven solution for today’s IT environments, control program, Start Interpretive Execution, SIE

Before the word “java” meant more than just a cup of coffee, before anyone had heard of a PC, before microwave ovens or touchtone phones were commonplace and before man landed on the moon, IBM created the first virtual-machine hypervisor on the IBM System/360*. While this new mainframe OS wasn’t available as a formal product offering, IBM clients began to use it. In 1972, IBM officially released this innovative OS, calling it VM/370, and IBM clients from all industry sectors began to use it as platform for multi-user computing and for hosting virtual servers. IBM provided commercial-grade virtualization decades before the rest of the industry recognized the value and followed the path IBM blazed.

In the years since, IBM clients have seen VM/370 replaced by an evolution of increasingly powerful virtualization systems, including VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA* and, today, z/VM*. The trust clients have in z/VM is the natural result of years of IBM investment in hardware, firmware and software technologies to create an environment that maintains necessary separation between virtual servers, while at the same time providing excellent performance characteristics and flexible administration of virtual servers. For more details on z/VM, see “What is z/VM?”.

Providing a secure virtual environment is more important than ever because increasing numbers of organizations and institutions worldwide are turning to virtualization to reduce IT costs. The virtualization layer is an attractive target that, if compromised, would provide easy access to all of the data used by all of the hosted virtual servers.

Providing a secure virtual environment is more important than ever because increasing numbers of organizations and institutions worldwide are turning to virtualization to reduce IT costs.

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