CATBIRD

Founded: Established in 2000; shifted focus to virtual network security in July 2007.

Headquarters: California, USA

Management: CEO Ron Lachman, an entrepreneur who served as executive vice president at Interactive Systems and co-founded Praxsys, which he sold to Sun in 1992.

Funding: Self-funded.

How the company got its start: Launched by Lachman in 2000, its focused on network monitoring. In 2002, the company morphed into a managed security-service provider for the banking industry. In 2005, Catbird transformed its service into physical network-security technology, which eventually matured to include virtual network-security. In July 2007, Catbird introduced V-Agent, a VMware-certified virtual appliance for network security.

What the company offers: The V-Agent virtual appliance, which runs as guest software in the VMware hypervisor to monitor and protect virtual machines, and the V-Security software suite. The suite includes HypervisorShield, which monitors hypervisors for specific vulnerabilities, known attack-signatures and guest-machine access to protect customer environments. The service protects against unauthorized network access and attack, Catbird says, by making sure the hypervisor network is configured in line with security policies and best practices.

Why it's worth watching: "Catbird is combining monitoring capabilities with configuration management features for the virtual world," Burton Group's Lindstrom says. "Virtualization introduces a more dynamic environment that could be an administration nightmare. Catbird has capabilities to manage and wants to bring that into the security space."

How the company got its name: Catbirds sit high in the tree canopy and alert other birds to danger. Likewise, the Catbird agents sit in the cloud and notify security managers when they see security problems in the virtual environment, the company says.

Who uses the product: Stanford Federal Credit Union and Sunmark Community Bank.