Catbird® Launches First-Ever Comprehensive Security and Compliance Solution for Cloud Computing Providers

October 28, 2009; 02:11 PM

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Catbird^®, the pioneer in leading-edge security and compliance solutions for virtual infrastructure, today announced the launch and immediate availability of its new vSecurity Cloud Edition™, the first solution designed specifically to enable both public and private cloud computing providers to instantly deliver SOX, PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, COBIT, DIACAP and other regulatory-based security and compliance policy monitoring and enforcement. vSecurity Cloud Edition was previewed at last month’s VMworld 2009, for which it was honored with a Best of Show Finalist award, the first security product to win in the Cloud Computing category.

vSecurity Cloud Edition gives service providers the competitive edge with the industry’s only automated monitoring and enforcement solution that covers all seven critical control areas: auditing, inventory management, configuration management, change management, access control, vulnerability management and incident response, in an elegant solution specifically architected to meet the needs of cloud providers.

“Compliance workflow and reporting is the “money report” of cloud computing, and Catbird delivers,” said Edmundo Costa, Catbird COO. “Everyday, cloud providers face customers who demand documented privacy, security and compliance before they’ll commit to cloud-based deployments. vSecurity Cloud Edition delivers the information with a compliance workflow based on comprehensive security controls, empowering customers to embrace cloud-based infrastructure.”

vSecurity Cloud Edition: Security Provider for Amazon Web Services Customers

Catbird is the only virtualization security product offered by Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) web service, which provides instantly-scalable cloud-based computing capacity to meet evolving enterprise needs. Customers of Amazon’s EC2 now have the option of adding automated, continuous vulnerability monitoring to their Amazon Machine Image with Catbird’s vSecurity Cloud Edition. Organizations regulated by PCI or other policies that demand compliance can take advantage of Amazon’s state-of-the art cloud while remaining compliant, enhancing Amazon’s value proposition and accelerating growth in this increasingly-popular space.

“Cloud computing is a natural extension of where data centers are headed with virtualization,” notes Neil MacDonald, Vice President and Gartner Fellow. “We’ve come a long way towards implementing virtualization more securely, and virtualized security controls are a key element of this. Organizations should demand the same level of protection and compliance from cloud-based service providers as they would from their own virtualized or physical infrastructure.”

Industry Leading Compliance Controls

vSecurity Cloud Edition delivers unprecedented comprehensive coverage to ensure cloud service providers meet their customer mandates, including:

• SOX compliance measurement and reporting across 39 COBIT controls;
• PCI compliance measurement and reporting across 96 test requirements impacted by virtualization;
• HIPAA compliance measurement and reporting across 37 controls negatively impacted by virtualization;
• DIACAP compliance measurement and reporting across all 26 controls affected by virtualization, including the 12 Mac1 controls;
• COBIT compliance measurement across over 40 controls affected by virtualization, and
• FISMA compliance and reporting across 51 controls.

Among numerous protection and enforcement features, vSecurity Cloud Edition provides:

• 24x7 vulnerability management with a fully compliant scanner that is automatically correlated with other virtual machine attributes to provide an accurate assessment of known defects against a specific and customizable compliance framework.
• NAC-based enforcement for continuous monitoring of the virtual machine population, real-time inventory management, and the most accurate real-time VM catalog and virtual machine sprawl prevention
• A multi-tenant management portal that provides compliance intelligence aggregation, management and reporting across physical, virtual, private and public clouds from a single dashboard, while ensuring the privacy of customer or departmental data.

Essential for cloud providers is customizable, real-time reporting on the compliance and security status of the customer’s applications and systems, tailored for the appropriate audience ranging from executive-level managers to technical IT administrators.

Partners signing on quickly

Catbird vSecurity Cloud Edition has already been embraced by cloud providers and platform vendors whose customer base demands broad-based security and compliance.

“Once again, Catbird has risen to the occasion to build the most robust, feature-rich virtualization security solution on the market, with functionality designed specifically to meet the needs of the cloud provider,” said Ali Davachi, CEO of ValueReseller.com (www.valuereseller.com), a leading provider of private label cloud hosting services that has recently added vSecurity Cloud Edition to its portfolio of reseller focused services. “We’re committed to helping our resellers deliver the most secure environment for their mission-critical hosting and data storage needs. After evaluating several choices, Catbird was the clear winner for its ability to deliver comprehensive security and compliance.”

"By integrating Catbird into our suite of products we are able to provide unparalleled security and policy controls to our customers, while also taking most of the complexity out of managing their cloud computing infrastructure," said Jaymes Davis, CEO of Halo FC (www.halofc.com), a cloud enablement software company that is an emerging hybrid cloud solution for the enterprise.

Ideal for both public and private clouds, vSecurity Cloud Edition features a Service-Oriented Architecture that incorporates stateless agents reporting to a separate command center. Full integration with ESX 3.X, vSphere 4.x and up and Citrix XenServer enables seamless deployment in cross-platform environments. Infinitely scalable, vSecurity Cloud Edition allows cloud providers to seamlessly add clouds to existing infrastructure, without additional investment in security and compliance. For public clouds, SLA enforcement provides value-added assurance for clients.

For more information about Catbird’s line of visionary security and compliance solutions for virtualization and cloud computing, including the new vSecurity Cloud Edition, visit www.catbird.com.

About Catbird

Catbird is the industry leader in comprehensive security and compliance for virtualized, cloud and physical environments, and a winner of three Best of Show Finalist Awards at VMworld 2009 and 2008; the Windows IT Pro Best of Tech·Ed 2008 IT Pro Editors Choice Award for Security; and winner of the 2007 VARBusiness Technology Innovator Award for Virtualization. Via Catbird vSecurity and the “Catbird” virtual appliance, Catbird is the only company delivering best-practice security for Hypervisor, Guest VMs and Policy/Regulatory Security Compliance. As companies migrate mainstream servers and desktops to virtual environments, uncertainty over security and compliance can impact deployment plans. Catbird’s protection eliminates these worries and keeps virtualization plans on track. Founded in 2000 by Internet pioneer Ron Lachman, the company’s in-the-cloud architecture protects thousands of customer systems and networks who rely on Catbird and its partners to protect their valuable IT assets from external and internal threats. The private company is based in Silicon Valley, and is currently recruiting new partners and resellers.

Contacts:

Press Contact:
Tony Keller
SS│PR
719-634-8279
tkeller@sspr.com