Now virtualization is another new concern, but virtualization itself is not a new invention. It is, however, proving to be virtually universal in deployment and computing. Now, first, it started with only memory expansion. A cheap inexpensive way of using software to create the illusion of having more memory than you actually have. This way, we didn't have to add physical chip space, starting in 1967, until 1986 when the virtualization of other components began to take shape in an operational fashion.

Now, of course, nearly every hardware device we've got, from cell phone to mainframe, is now able to do that. and virtually every device you can describe is virtualizable. These are, of course, logical equivalents to the metal machine, essentially, function without form. Programmatically, they should be functionally transparent to a program, however, that doesn't always prove to be the case. To put it another way, you can't take something built to run on a system inside your own data center and fork lifted into the cloud unmodified.

The applications therefore, must be designed to interface with the virtual environment in the proper way. Otherwise, they won't work at all. And systems must be adapted to affect the portability from machine to cloud, the common environment that they are attempted to be fork lifted into. This brings on new dimensions of computation, new programming architecture, and tools.

Now, the same design, construction and implementation mandates still apply. In other words, again, "trust no one." The greatly expanded threat base, being that you're now exposed to the world across the internet, gives a much greater attack surface due to the greater complexity of these components and, in particular, to a much broader exposure.