HP says as organizations move to a more virtualized and converged infrastructures, the importance of security is increased. Virtualized environments and their applications are subject to the same threats that impact traditional data centers.

The HP TippingPoint Secure Virtualization Framework (SVF) is a suite of products designed to help prevent network threats from impacting virtualized environments. The TippingPoint Virtual Controller (vController), the first product introduced under the SVF, extends TippingPoint security protection from physical to virtual networks by routing it through an HP TippingPoint N-Platform Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) appliance. The vController prevents security attacks by inspecting all VM traffic as it moves through the network — either between VMs or from VMs to traditional servers.

Additional vController features include:

*Increased network security by extending HP’s automated threat-prevention capabilities to virtual environments.

*Reduced deployment complexity by enabling customers to extend the same processes, tools used in securing their physical environments to their virtual infrastructures.

*Simplified management of network security by providing single-pane-of-glass management, visibility and control across both physical and virtual networks.

Financial terms of the purchase were not released.

Intelliden provides network automation solutions, which are becoming more important for enterprises to automate the configuration of thousands of manually managed network devices like hubs, routers and switches from dozens of vendors.

Analysts estimate more than 60 percent of network outages are caused by manual configuration errors. By acquiring this automation technology, IBM aims to help clients improve network service availability, decrease risk through compliance reporting and improve staff efficiency.

This acquisition is expected to further strengthen the IBM service management portfolio by offering, comprehensive solutions for automation and optimization of digital and physical assets. This includes full-service lifecycle management of network devices, IT, data center and physical assets as diverse as water mains, railway cars and even door locks.

“The typical company is managing a more complex and ever changing infrastructure —stretched across digital and physical assets,” said Al Zollar, general manager, IBM Tivoli software.

“Companies are managing a virtualized computing layer that more than ever relies on the network. Intelliden’s intelligent network automation is an important addition to IBM’s portfolio to extend automation across all business and IT assets.”

Two-thirds (65%) of all executives plan on investing in new technologies in 2009. Investment will be focused on new equipment, a variety of software, storage and security updates.

When it comes to IT spending for this year, forty percent of executives said that their IT budgets are expected to be lower this year, while nearly a quarter (24%) indicated their budgets will be higher.

Three out of four executives are concerned about the increased use of social networking capabilities’ potential impact on network security. Forty-four percent allow employees to access social networking sites. However, hacking continues to be listed as the biggest security risk to companies (30% compared with 3% for social networking).

Sixty-seven percent of executives indicate that wireless network capabilities are part of their business continuity plan. In addition, nearly half (46%) said that mobile devices play a major role in their plan’s considerations.

“In today’s business environment, connectivity cannot be disrupted, which is why business continuity planning and disaster recovery efforts are paramount,” said Bill Archer, chief marketing officer – AT&T Business Solutions.

“The top three lessons learned by the executives we surveyed who have experienced a disaster include: having a plan in place is critical; increase back-up systems to ensure no data loss; and have multiple means of communication available.