NSA Secure Workstation Solution to use VMware

VMware announced an agreement with General Dynamics C4 Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, to develop a complete turn-key High-Assurance Platform workstation using VMware software for a contract with the National Security Agency.

Chartered by the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, the NSA contracted General Dynamics C4 Systems to design a secure workstation. General Dynamics chose VMware’s industry-leading virtualization software so that HAP-mandated users employed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the intelligence community and other government agencies can access information requiring different security clearance levels from a single physical machine.

VMware software allows users to run the equivalent of physically isolated machines with separate levels of security clearance on the same workstation. Through the joint HAP project, government agencies would be able to purchase an end-to-end secure workstation solution developed by General Dynamics that pre-integrates VMware software and provides secure access to multiple clearance levels in accordance with government regulations.

Agencies purchasing the HAP workstations stand to realize a number of other benefits in addition to enabling secure access to multiple clearance levels. The HAP workstations are designed to provide Tactical Armed Forces units a reduction in size, weight and power requirements for their mobile field environments while being able to share assured information across communities of interest, ensuring troops in the field receive the information they need when they need it.