I don't believe that the Intel processors had much in the way of security when Windows v3.11 was created, as an application on top of MS-DOS. Allegedly XP is a new architecture, but, well, you know... Same with Vista. Isn't it really still just an application on top of MS-DOS? :)

Unfortunately OpenVMS is no longer relevant. They sunsetted it before Compaq bought DEC. The development team even tried to add an M$ compatible registry, even though OpenVMS already had a registry called SYSGEN.

These days OpenVMS is so far behind the times there is no hope for it. AFAIK it still only runs on VAX and Alpha processors which aren't even worth the electricity that they burn. Intel Core 2 processors kick ass. OpenVMS will never be ported to that platform, though. Too bad. OpenVMS was the only operating system that was secure by design. UNIX and Windows try to retrofit security as add-ons. All of the Sun Microsystems junk (Java, finger, rexec, NFS, NIS, ...) are security nightmares.

So now these virtual machines want to run Windows or Linux or UNIX. Sounds like an attack vector to me.

Probably no - only the spam botnet coders seem to know what they are doing, and their spam mails 'come from' virtual (ie - non-existant) companies.

I'm not seeing how a virtual network can be any more secure than the machines it runs off; really in practice they'd be acting as a type of firewall, proxy, IDS.

If M$ hadn't screwed up royally when the monkeys pounding the keyboards accidentally produced Windoze, we wouldn't be in this situation. M$ deliberately compromised the security ring architecture Intel had built into their processors mainly because Billy and his cohorts had no idea how they worked and were too arrogant to ask.

OpenVMS still remains the most secured OS generally available, but thanks to perpetual f**kups from the limp-wristed inbreds at HP.....

Does anyone in this business know what they are doing?