Broadcom today at the VMware Explore 2024 conference extended its VMware vDefend portfolio to include generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in addition to extending its software-defined edge computing portfolio to provide deeper integrations with networking and security platforms that its VMware business unit provides.

VMware vDefend, formally known as VMware NSX Security Solutions, is a suite of tools and platforms, including firewalls, that run across the VMware network virtualization platform. VMware is now adding support for Project Cypress, a generative AI co-pilot that VMware is adding to VMware vDefend.

In addition, Broadcom is adding analytics tools for identifying malware and firewall issues and additional intrusion detection and intrusion prevention capabilities.

Broadcom is also now making it possible for VMware vDefend to collect sensor data from the VMware hypervisor in addition to providing an ability to import existing security configurations into VMware Cloud Foundation 9 for building private clouds.

Additionally, Broadcom is now providing fixed wireless access (FWA) and satellite connections support for the VMware VeloCloud Edge appliances, including a new set of VeloCloud Edge 710, 720, and 740 appliances that combine FWA, satellite and software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) services.

In addition, Broadcom’s networking portfolio has also been integrated with VMware Edge Compute Stack.

Finally, the secure access service edge (SASE) platform from VMware, dubbed VMware VeloCloud SASE, is now integrated with Symantec security services, that Broadcom provides as a cloud service.

Sanjay Uppal, vice president and general manager for the Software-Defined Edge Division at Broadcom, said these types of capabilities are critical as more mission-critical applications infused with, for example, artificial intelligence (AI) are deployed in, for example, operations technology (OT) environments that are already being heavily targeted by cyberattacks.

For example, small language models that might be deployed on a platform on the edge that will also be sending data back to larger AI models running in the cloud or in a local data center will need to be secured as sensitive data streams across a wide area network, noted Uppal.

It’s not clear to what degree organizations are relying on both VMware and Broadcom security offerings. Still, in the wake of the acquisition of VMware, there is a concerted effort underway to better integrate the combined portfolio.
Of course, cybersecurity teams already have no shortage of tools and platforms, and it remains to be seen to what degree these integrations might reduce the total cost of cybersecurity. In the meantime, as more responsibility for security operations (SecOps) is pushed out to IT and networking operations teams, there is an opportunity to reduce the number of cybersecurity and IT vendors an organization might engage.

Regardless of motivation, Broadcom is betting that as more workloads are distributed to the edge, organizations will look for a more comprehensive approach to security that includes the ability to secure on-premises IT environments and cloud computing services. The challenge, as always, is the teams that run those various environments would all need to support any consolidation effort.