Cisco makes virtualisation investment

Networking giant takes stake in start-up

Cisco Systems and several other investors have invested US$10.5 million in HyTrust, a start-up that is tackling security problems on VMware's virtualisation platform.

HyTrust sells a hardware- or software-based appliance that gives administrators a central point from which to control access, policy management, security configuration and compliance in virtual environments. Analysts have praised HyTrust's technology for solving authentication problems in VMware's hypervisor with more granular auditing and security controls.

Cisco's investment is indicative of its increasing focus on virtualisation. It has developed software switches for virtualisation deployments and its Unified Computing System uses VMware.