Mark Shavlik

I am happy to announce that VMware has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Shavlik Technologies. Our two companies have a long-term relationship built upon VMware GO™ (www.vmwarego.com), our joint SaaS based IT Management solution. VMware GO assists SMBs with rapid deployment and management of VMware vSphere, the VMware Hypervisor and general IT management of both physical and virtual computers. VMware GO has attracted over 200,000 registered users creating more than 20,000 VMware Hypervisors and 120,000 Virtual machines.

Shavlik and VMware share a vision of IT Management for now and the future. A vision of delivering solid, easy to use …

We spent the last week in Boston and New York talking to reporters and analysts about some exciting news that went live today. You can read the press release here, but I also wanted to describe in my own words the significance of this announcement and how it fits into our overall vision for the market.

At Shavlik, we have been helping companies solve their complex security challenges with best-in-class patch management solutions since the ‘90s. We could have easily continued to focus solely on patch management and grown a thriving business …

I’ve been working with system administrators since the 80s. I’ve seen a lot of the changes they have gone through. Software as a Service (SaaS) has been around for a while now and has really helped to change the workday for administrators. By moving specific applications to a SaaS model, admins have been able to eliminate busy role work like backing up systems or recovering Exchange servers. Moving HR, sales force, and finance applications to SaaS meant that admins got time back in their day to find new ways to help grow the business, secure it, and implement the latest …

Heading off to RSA shortly, we do not have a booth there this year. Its a networking event much more than a trade show now. Last year I spent zero time in the booth no matter how hard I tried, this year I am just going to meetings and sessions.

As noted by SANS end-point patch management lags: “New attack data shows organizations are missing the mark in their security priorities as client-side application flaws, Web flaws dominate as attack vectors”

It’s safe to assume that most organizations that want run AV on their end-points do, but why not patch management?  Both are needed, so why not just deploy a solution and solve the problem?  Both patching and AV products have been around for years, right?

So why does the SANS study show end-points are not well patched?

A few thoughts — WSUS is too hard to manage and if you get it right you …

This article is a replay of recent blog but it has a great quote, its part of a pretty busy day on the Google News for “patch management”

“Waves of targeted e-mail attacks, often called ‘spear phishing,’ are exploiting client-side vulnerabilities in commonly used programs such as Adobe PDF Reader, QuickTime, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Office,” the report states. “This is currently the primary initial infection vector used to compromise computers that have Internet access.”

What floors me is that I wrote software to detect the first Microsoft patch about 12 years ago and people are still not getting patches out.  Proper …

I was in San Francisco at the VMworld conference this week.  Lots of activity, good sessions, and many vendor announcements being made.    SF has a great downtown, and we had great weather there making it very enjoyable.

VMworld reminded me of the energy people using VMware products have, it was a great show this year as it was last year.  When I compare it to the 2009 RSA show, held at the same location, VMworld just felt much more active with people there to learn and create new solutions.  The VMworld show floor was always busy, even the last hour …

Larger companies and government departments are likely to consider going to the Cloud but in a more controlled and secure fashion via a Private Cloud.  A Private Cloud has all the benefits of the Public Clouds but it is hosted inside the firewall of the company or department it is supporting.  Full control of who has access to data is maintained while all the benefits of the Cloud are realized. End-users simply buy their Cloud services from the Private Cloud and the Private Cloud treats the end-users in the same way a Cloud vendor treats its customers. An institution would …

Another example of how the Cloud creates greater efficiency is a software development group that wants to create a new software application for either internal or external customers.  By leveraging a Cloud provider they immediately have access to a complete server development environment with no need for IT and with modern cloud database technologies the data is stored in efficient, redundant locations. Servers are tuned and kept up to date by the Cloud provider so no further resources need to be allocated.  During the load testing phase the group can use the Cloud to run hundreds of clients, and after  …

Virtualization provides the foundation for servers on demand by implementing an on-line operating system that is required for all other operating systems to run on the Cloud. Virtualization also enables the Cloud to rapidly create server space based on end-user demand by simply running a new instance of an operating system on an existing server. Virtualization through the Cloud creates a model by which servers become services and the underlying operation system is no longer a factor in how quickly or easily a new server can be provisioned. Looking at the rapid growth of smart phones you see devices where the applications …