Fortisphere Announces New Version of Virtualization Management Suite

Virtual Essentials(TM) v2.0 extends Fortisphere's leadership in
delivering next-generation policy-based automation
CHANTILLY, Va.--(Business Wire)--
Fortisphere, a leading provider of policy-based virtualization
management software, today announced the release of Fortisphere
Virtual Essentials(TM) 2.0, the industry's most comprehensive solution
for policy-based management of heterogeneous virtual infrastructures.
With extensive eco-system integration into leading systems and
infrastructure management vendors, Fortisphere is delivering next
generation technology that compliments existing investments in
data-center management solutions. In addition to broad eco-system
integration, Virtual Essentials v2.0 also features expanded
capabilities, including agentless inspection of offline virtual
machine configurations, extended configuration intelligence and an
enhanced policy framework to provide users with unprecedented levels
of visibility, control and automation across their virtual
infrastructures.

"The abstraction provided by server virtualization creates new and
complex management challenges that previously did not exist," said
Chris Wolf, senior analyst, Burton Group. "Tools that leverage
policies to automate virtualization management tasks, audit and track
virtual assets and provide effective compliance auditing are quickly
evolving from luxuries to necessities in today's increasingly complex
virtual environments."

"As we continue to grow our virtual infrastructure, the management
of virtual machines has become mission critical," said Thomas Tazwell,
director of engineering services at Duke Health Technology Solutions,
one of the world's leading care providers. "With Fortisphere Virtual
Essentials, we are able to automate the management processes in our
virtual infrastructure that let us control sprawl and reduce our time
to identify previously unknown issues. For Duke that equates to real
cost savings. Fortisphere plays a critical role in how we manage our
virtual infrastructure and we look forward to leveraging the enhanced
capabilities in Virtual Essentials v2.0."

"Even before the current virtualization boom, management solutions
commonly turned into "shelfware." However, today's extensive
virtualization deployments require management automation to help
control configuration-related issues and reclaim poorly utilized
resources fueled by VM sprawl," said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise
Strategy Group. "Fortisphere Virtual Essentials empowers end-users
with the ability to manage all VMs, regardless of status, through
policy-based automation. Fortisphere's ability to accomplish this
across heterogeneous infrastructures is further evidence that the true
value of virtualization will be delivered at the management layer."

"Fortisphere is dedicated to providing customers with the
industry's most comprehensive policy-based automation capabilities
that help drive down IT costs and eliminate IT cycles associated with
the manual management of a virtual environment," said Michael Harper,
president and CEO, Fortisphere. "Built on our patented Inside
Track(TM) Technology, Virtual Essentials v2.0 is a powerful solution
that provides our customers with an intelligent and controlled
approach to automating the management of their virtual infrastructure.
By taking a more proactive approach through policy-based management,
our customers are realizing near immediate returns on their
investments in virtualization technology."

New Features and Benefits

Fortisphere Virtual Essentials v2.0 provides organizations with a
number of new features designed to simplify and automate the
management and growth of a virtual infrastructure. New features
include:

-- Enhanced User Interface--With simplified controls and
elaborate graphical elements, users can more quickly view and
manage the entire virtual infrastructure.

-- Expanded Agentless Inspection of VMs--Inspect online and
offline VMs, providing deep configuration intelligence across
the entire virtual infrastructure.

-- Expanded Data Collection--Discovery and assessment features
provide the industries deepest details about virtual machine
resources, including system, security, software and user
information.

-- Enhanced Comparative Analysis--Automated configuration
analysis quickly identifies configuration drift and triggers
the remediation process.

-- Enhanced Policy Framework--The ability to author rules and
import or export policies across environments and VMs provides
enhanced control over the entire virtual infrastructure.

-- Additional Content--Virtual Essentials v2.0 features more than
40 new out-of-the-box policy rules and reports for offline
VMs, change management, configuration management, sprawl
management and infrastructure activity.

Pricing and Availability

Fortisphere Virtual Essentials v2.0 will be available in September
and pricing starts at $10,000.

About Fortisphere

Fortisphere is the leading provider of policy-based virtualization
management software that ensures virtualized environments operate
efficiently, effectively and securely. With its patent-pending Inside
Track(TM) Technology, Fortisphere is pioneering solutions that provide
a new level of visibility, control and automation around the
inventory, configuration and policy-based management of virtual
machines.

Fortisphere is a venture-backed company, headquartered in
Chantilly, VA with offices in Boston, MA, and Glenwood, MD. More
information about Fortisphere is located online at
www.fortisphere.com.

Schwartz Communications
Keith Giannini or Shweta Agarwal, 781-684-0770
Fortisphere@schwartz-pr.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008