Catbird and Forsythe Establish Partnership to Secure Virtualized and Cloud Environments

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif., Nov. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Catbird®, the pioneer in security and compliance for virtual, cloud and physical networks, today announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Forsythe, a leading IT infrastructure consultant and integrator. Forsythe will offer Catbird's vSecurity® software to bring PCI, HIPAA and SOX compliance to its customers who are moving to virtual and cloud-based infrastructure.

"Security and compliance are critical components for all IT infrastructure. As environments are virtualized, new risks are introduced due to a loss of process control across four change dimensions," says David Poarch, VP, security of Forsythe. "Catbird has developed a solution specifically for virtualized environments that delivers dynamic, elastic security and integrated compliance for sensitive and mission-critical applications."

"Recent guidance from PCI, NIST and SANS proves that relying on traditional physical firewalls and physical network inspection is risky and will not pass an audit. Catbird vSecurity® was built from the ground up to do virtual and cloud security better, faster and cheaper," said Edmundo Costa, Catbird CEO. "Forsythe's extensive experience in integrating not only virtualized solutions, but also physical infrastructure solutions, across security, servers, networks and storage make them a strong partner in helping our virtualization clients with their security needs."

Catbird vSecurity harnesses the power of virtualization to deliver the industry's most comprehensive security and compliance solution for virtual and cloud systems. vSecurity covers the gaps endemic to traditional security devices, introducing a new model for data center security.  By correlating data and events from across all virtual hosts, vSecurity enforces controls on virtual machines, their network attributes, virtual networks, and the switch fabric – protecting the whole data plane.

Catbird pioneered cost-effective security automation through dynamic and elastic logical security zoning: TrustZones®. vSecurity includes vCompliance® integrated compliance workflow and reporting, the industry's only real time compliance solution for PCI, FISMA, DIACAP and HIPAA and other important 3rd party standards. With predefined templates for easy configuration, ensuring virtual data center compliance is as simple as a button-click.

"Virtualization security opens the door for mission-critical applications that have traditionally been left out of virtualization roll-outs," added Costa. "vSecurity will provide Forsythe customers with the ability to meet the new requirements and maximize their virtualization and cloud ROI by being able to include in their deployment plans most applications that were previously excluded, such as, for example, applications that handle PCI data."

To learn more about Catbird's industry-leading, comprehensive security solutions for virtual and cloud environments, visit http://www.catbird.com or follow Catbird on Twitter at @CatbirdSecurity.

About Catbird (www.catbird.com)

Catbird is the industry leader in comprehensive security and compliance for virtualized, cloud and physical environments, and a winner of four Best of Show Finalist Awards at VMworld 2010, 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 innovative technology protects tens of 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.

About Forsythe

Founded in 1971, Forsythe is an information technology infrastructure integrator. Forsythe helps complex organizations across all industries, including Fortune 1000 companies, optimize the cost and manage the risk of their IT while improving performance. Forsythe provides independent technology and business consulting services, technology leasing services, and value-added reseller services for all the leading technology product manufacturers. Headquartered in Skokie, Illinois, Forsythe employs nearly 900 people in 50 offices throughout the United States and Canada. Forsythe is privately held and 100-percent employee-owned. In 2010, Forsythe achieved its 40th consecutive year of profitability with revenues of $791 million. Forsythe McArthur Associates Inc., Forsythe Solutions Group Inc., Forsythe Technology Canada Inc. and Forsythe International Inc. are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Forsythe Technology Inc. For more information, visit www.forsythe.com.

Contact:  

Tamar Newberger
Catbird
212-677-2101
[email protected]

Kyra Auslander
Forsythe Technology
847-213-7178
[email protected]

SOURCE Catbird