Sophos has announced the release of Virtual Web Appliances, a new security platform that sits on top of virtual environments.
Available for download via the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace, the new platform features malware detection and URL and content-based filtering in a virtual appliance.
It includes Sophos Managed Appliances, which the company says introduces remote monitoring and automated maintenance as well as automating the update and upgrade cycle. Sophos claims this combines the best of both worlds – the benefits of virtualisation and on-premise control with the cost savings of a managed service.
The Sophos Virtual Appliances also features pre-configured performance profiles, built-in load balancing and a management console that lets users manage several virtual appliances through a single dashboard.
"Organisations are increasingly looking to squeeze more out of less by further leveraging their investment in virtualisation, but simply implementing virtualised versions of the same maintenance-heavy applications only helps to a limited extent," said Chris Kraft, vice president of product management at Sophos.
"Our Virtual Web Appliance allows IT departments to not only leverage all the benefits of virtualisation, but also those of a managed service, all the while keeping their data on-premise and preserving complete control," he added.
Sophos is offering free trials of the technology and licensing will be based on a per user, per year basis, regardless of the number of virtual servers being used.
