SAN FRANCISCO, CA–( EMWNews – April 8, 2008) – RSA, Booth #1933 — Apani, the preeminent provider of

cross-platform server isolation solutions for large enterprises, today

announced the launch of EpiForce VM,

the first single-platform security solution for protecting both virtual and

physical machines.

Enterprises are rapidly deploying server virtualization to realize benefits

associated with increased operational flexibility, improved utilization,

avoidance of unplanned downtime and a reduced carbon footprint. The rush to

virtualize has caused many to overlook security best-practices common in a

physical environment. According to Gartner, through 2009, 60 percent of

virtual machines used in production will be less secure than their physical

counterparts. While the benefits of server virtualization are clear,

security challenges force enterprises to make trade-offs between broad

deployment and security that is robust enough to protect their business.

By offering robust virtual and physical machine security, EpiForce VM

enables enterprises to fully deploy server virtualization and realize the

benefits it offers.

Apani EpiForce VM is a unique software-based alternative to security

appliances that operate only in a virtual environment and to internal

network firewalls and VLANs used for physical segmentation within the

corporate network. The concept behind EpiForce VM is to enable a single

platform that isolates both virtual and physical servers, endpoints and

business-critical data into logical security zones, regardless of their

platform or physical location on the network. Communications between these

zones is strictly controlled by authentication of all machine-to-machine

traffic and selective encryption based on policy.

“To exploit virtualization to its fullest, and become vastly more agile in

responding to changing business requirements and opportunities, IT needs to

embrace security tools that can fully cope with servers that move from

place to place within or among data centers, that change MAC and IP

addresses along the way, and that may exist for only a few hours at a

time,” said John Burke, principle research analyst, Nemertes Research.

“The challenge today is that physical solutions like VLANs and internal

network firewalls are based on physical connections and don’t mesh well

with virtualized servers,” said Scott Ferguson, vice president of product

management at Apani. “And addressing server virtualization security as if

it were a separate network adds yet another layer of management, which

negates one of the reasons for deploying server virtualization in the first

place — operational flexibility.”

EpiForce VM uses on-demand policy distribution to offer enterprises the

ability to manage and deploy policy to thousands of virtual or physical

servers and endpoints with no impact to the network, application, or user.

EpiForce VM offers a centralized management console that enables a

consolidated view to manage all EpiForce VM-protected machines — whether

they are virtual or physical, without regard to their physical location on

the network. Persistent security allows administrators to utilize VMotion

or Virtual Center to migrate EpiForce VM-protected virtual machines from

one physical host to another with no disruption of security policy,

minimizing unplanned downtime and maximizing operational flexibility.

EpiForce VM offers enterprises running VMware ESX Server 3.0 many unique

benefits, including:

--  Protect virtual machines and physical servers and endpoints with a

    single solution

--  Manage all EpiForce VM-protected machines through a single management

    console, regardless of platform or physical location and without the need

    to reconfigure the network

--  Migrate virtual machines using VMotion or Virtual Center without

    compromising security policy

--  Protect virtual machines from vulnerabilities introduced through VM

    sprawl

    

Other EpiForce VM features include:

--  Cross-platform support secures complex, heterogeneous environments

--  Network layer transparency offers deployment in days rather than

    months

--  On-demand policy distribution deploys policy to tens or hundreds of

    thousands of machines without impacting network performance

--  Distributed architecture eliminates bottlenecks and single points of

    failure

--  Manage policy from virtual or physical administrator consoles - or

    both

--  Robust audit, logging and reporting enable full administrator

    visibility

--  Role-based delegation of administrative privileges accommodates almost

    any organizational process

    

“The industry is rushing toward virtualization and many vendors are rapidly

introducing virtual-only point products,” continued Ferguson. “We made a

strategic decision based on the reality that enterprises have a mix of

legacy systems, virtualized servers and everything in between. We offer a

more practical approach — the same, simple-to-use security application,

any platform, any location. It’s the way securing a virtualized environment

should be.”

Committed to the industry movement toward virtualization, Apani is part of

the first group of companies to be selected to participate in VMware

VMsafe™ Developers Program. The VMsafe Developer’s Program consists of

leading high technology companies building a new class of open,

interoperable and cross-platform innovations for virtual machines. Apani

is also a member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program as

a Select Partner.

EpiForce VM will be available early in Q2 and will initially support VMware

ESX Server 3.0. More information on EpiForce VM can be obtained by

visiting www.apani.com/vm.

About Apani

Apani® is the preeminent provider of cross-platform server

isolation solutions for large enterprises. Apani’s solution isolates

and secures the communication between servers and endpoints without regard

to operating system or physical location.

Apani EpiForce®, the company’s flagship product, is a software-based

alternative to using firewalls and VLANs inside the corporate network.

EpiForce enables two powerful disciplines — logical security zoning and

policy-based encryption of data in motion. EpiForce is a distributed,

centrally-managed solution that is transparent to users, applications and

infrastructure — making it quicker to deploy and less costly to manage

than hardware-centric solutions. Policy enforced by EpiForce is

persistent, which enables protected resources to be relocated without

compromising security.

Providing an evolutionary improvement in efficiency, flexibility,

manageability and total cost of ownership, Apani technology is used by much

of the Fortune 500.

Based in Southern California, Apani was founded in 2003 and is privately

held. More information about the company may be found at www.apani.com.

Contact: Halie Schmidt Lages & Associates Inc. 949/453-8080 [email protected]