Is it Safe?

Last year we wrote a research report about VMware's introduction of its VMsafe APIs to enable selected partners to develop security products for VMware environments.  We interviewed most of the 20 VMsafe announced partners at the time and found that there was a lot of confusion about what VMsafe would actually be and when it would be available. We concluded that this was something that virtualization security start-ups should avoid getting intimately involved with VMsafe until there was a clearer roadmap with the possibilities of third party adoption and monetization.  Since then, several of these partners either had disappointing results and/or dropped out of the business completely.  So now that VMware has included its VMsafe APIs in its newest vSPhere 4 release, it's time to re-consider the situation.  As adoption of VMsafe 4 occurs, so will the ability to use VMsafe security partner products which, in turn, means that this may (finally) be the beginning of the market for security add-ons to VMware.