When implementing VMware virtualization technology, organizations must ensure that they can continue to maintain a secure environment and meet their compliance obligations. To do so, you will have to evaluate risks that might affect protected information and mitigate those risks through risk-appropriate standards, processes, and best practices.The official release of the vSphere 5.1 Hardening Guide provides guidance on how to securely deploy VMware vSphere 5 in a production environment. The focus is on initial configuration of the virtualization infrastructure layer, which covers the following:
- The virtualization hosts
- Configuration of the virtual machine container (NOT hardening of the guest operating system (OS) or any applications running within)
- Configuration of the virtual networking infrastructure, including the management and storage networks as well as the virtual switch (but NOT security of the virtual machine’s network)
- SSO, VUM, the webclient, VCSA, vCenter Server, its database and client components
vSphere 5.1 Hardening Guide - Official Release by Mike Foley