They secure different parts of your infrastructure:
The Switch secures your physical network infrastructure (Layer 2/3).
The VMware Workstation Pro setup secures your network traffic (VPN) and operating environment (VM isolation).
Here is a breakdown of what each component secures:
The switch handles physical and logical segmentation of your local network:
Security Function
How the Switch Provides It:
Network Segmentation
VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks): The switch can isolate traffic into separate virtual networks (e.g., separating your production VM from other devices) to contain breaches.
Access Control
ACLs (Access Control Lists): Allows you to define rules to permit or deny traffic based on MAC/IP addresses and port numbers, providing granular control over what can connect and what data can pass.
Port Integrity
802.1x Port Authentication & MAC Lockdown: Prevents unauthorised devices from simply plugging into an unused port and gaining access to your network.
Defense
DoS Prevention: Includes basic mechanisms to defend the switch itself against denial-of-service flooding attacks.
This setup secures your data in transit and at the operating system level:
Security Function
How the VM Setup Provides It
Traffic Encryption
Linux Routing the VPN: All traffic from the production VM is routed through the VPN VM, which encrypts and tunnels the data. This protects your communication from surveillance, interception, and monitoring outside your local network.
OS Isolation
Virtual Machine (VM) Isolation: The production environment is contained within a VM, which is isolated from the host operating system (Host OS). This sandboxing protects the host from any malware or instability on the production VM.
Controlled Environment
Dedicated Production VM: The production VM can be stripped down to only the necessary software, minimizing the attack surface compared to running production tasks on a multipurpose host machine.
Rollback Capability
VM Snapshots: VMware Workstation allows you to take snapshots, providing a quick way to revert to a secure, known-good state if the production VM is compromised.
The switch provides the foundation of a secure local network, while the VM setup adds layers of isolation and encryption for the data and applications themselves.
You could have a very secure virtual environment (the VMs) that is compromised because an attacker plugged into an unsecured port on an unmanaged switch.
Conversely, you could have a perfectly segmented switch where the traffic is still unencrypted when it leaves your site, making the data vulnerable.
The most secure setup uses both: The switch segmenting the physical connections, and the VMware setup isolating the operating systems and encrypting the traffic.
To learn more about how virtual machines protect your computing environment, check out this video: Why Use Virtual Machines for Privacy and Security? Not Obvious! Top 6 List! This video discusses the privacy and security benefits of using virtual machines, which is the core of your second scenario.