VMware has announced new innovations across its expanding networking and security portfolio that will help customers embrace the cloud operating model. These include Project Northstar for multi-cloud networking, security and end-to-end visibility; expansion of network detection and visibility to the Carbon Black Cloud endpoint protection platform, with early access available now; Project Trinidad that extends and advances VMware’s API security and analytics and Project Watch, a new approach to multi-cloud networking and security that provides advanced app to app policy controls.

In Project Northstar, VMware announced a major advancement of its NSX platform. Announced in technology preview, Project Northstar will transform how enterprises consume networking and security in a multi-cloud world. Project Northstar will deliver multi-cloud networking, security, workload mobility and end-to-end threat detection and response with a centralized cloud-console for consistent and simplified software-as-a-service (SaaS) consumption. This family of services includes network & security policy management, network detection and response (NDR), network visibility and analytics (NSX Intelligence), advanced load balancing (ALB), and workload mobility (HCX) for private cloud environments and VMware Cloud deployments.

VMware is strengthening its lateral security capabilities by embedding network detection and visibility into Carbon Black Cloud’s endpoint protection platform, which is now available to select customers in early access. This extended detection and response (XDR) telemetry adds network detection and visibility to endpoints with no changes to infrastructure or endpoints, providing customers with extended visibility into their environment across endpoints and networks leaving attackers nowhere to hide.

Limited visibility into the east-west traffic between microservices also puts modern applications at greater risk. Project Trinidad, which is in tech preview, extends VMware’s API security and analytics by deploying sensors on Kubernetes clusters and uses machine learning with business logic inference to detect anomalous behavior in east-west traffic between microservices.

VMware also introduced Project Watch, a new approach to multi-cloud networking and security that will provide advanced app-to-app policy controls to help with continuous risk and compliance assessment. In technology preview, Project Watch will help network security and compliance teams to continuously observe, assess, and dynamically mitigate risk and compliance problems in composite multi-cloud applications.