Patent ID: 8966573
Filing Date: 2015-02-24
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A server system, comprising: a virtualization environment manager to manage a virtualization environment in which virtual machines can be deployed; and a security controller that: (i) receives security data corresponding to a candidate virtual machine that is proposed to be included in the virtualization environment, (ii) compares security data corresponding to the candidate virtual machine to security data corresponding to other ones of the plurality of virtual machines in the virtualization environment that are managed by the virtualization environment manager, and (iii) in response to the comparison, transmits a message to the virtualization environment manager recommending that the candidate virtual machine should be excluded from the virtualization environment; wherein at least one of the virtualization environment manager and the security controller is implemented in a computer processor; wherein the security controller comprises a controller component that generates a metric in response to security data provided by the monitor component that compares the security data corresponding to the candidate virtual machine to the respective security data corresponding to each of the virtual machines in the virtualization environment; and wherein the security data comprises a security policy, and wherein the metric evaluates a difference between a first security policy and a second security policy based on (i) a number of identical entries in the first and second policies (ii) a difference in the sizes of the security policies, and/or (iii) a difference in order of appearance of entries in the first and second security policies.