New demands are driving tremendous transformation in the data center and the network. In order for security architects to support new, virtualized data center architectures and fully converged networks, and to enable their organizations to take advantage of new applications built on a continually evolving stew of standards and protocols, they must adopt a cyclical, process oriented view of security. Risk analysis has to drive proactive development of security procedures and deployment of relevant technologies. In order to alleviate and mitigate the curse of complexity, security technologies should be centralized in management, highly interoperable, easy to configure and manage, scalable, and, ideally, capable of being virtualized so that they can be deployed inside as well as around a virtual infrastructure.