Page 1146 - (ISC)² CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide

internal work areas. Cipher locks, mantraps, security badges, and
guards are all common methods used to control access.

Managing Virtual Assets

Organizations are consistently implementing more and more
virtualization technologies due to the huge cost savings available. For
example, an organization can reduce 100 physical servers to just 10
physical servers, with each physical server hosting 10 virtual servers.

This reduces heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) costs,
power costs, and overall operating costs.

Virtualization extends beyond just servers. Software-defined
everything (SDx) refers to a trend of replacing hardware with software
using virtualization. Some of the virtual assets within SDx include the
following:

Virtual Machines (VMs) VMs run as guest operating systems on
physical servers. The physical servers include extra processing power,

memory, and disk storage to handle the VM requirements.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) A virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI), sometimes called a virtual desktop environment
(VDE), hosts a user’s desktop as a VM on a server. Users can connect
to the server to access their desktop from almost any system, including
from mobile devices. Persistent virtual desktops retain a custom
desktop for the user. Nonpersistent virtual desktops are identical for

all users. If a user makes changes, the desktop reverts to a known state
after the user logs off.

Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) SDNs decouple the control
plane from the data plane (or forwarding plane). The control plane
uses protocols to decide where to send traffic, and the data plane
includes rules that decide whether traffic will be forwarded. Instead of

traditional networking equipment such as routers and switches, an
SDN controller handles traffic routing using simpler network devices
that accept instructions from the controller. This eliminates some of
the complexity related to traditional networking protocols.

Virtual Storage Area Networks (VSANs) A SAN is a dedicated