Apani Unveils ID-Aware Network Solution

PRESS RELEASE

BREA, CA--(Marketwire - February 3, 2009) - Apani, the preeminent provider of identity-aware network solutions for large enterprises, today announced the launch of EpiForce 3.5, the newest version of its single-platform security solution for protecting both virtual and physical networks. EpiForce 3.5 adds identity-based access control and encryption to create an identity-aware network that enforces security policy based on the identity of the connected user.

The intersection of several trends has made the enforcement of security policy based on user identity a requirement. First, the growth of mobile workers whereby company employees are granted access to corporate networks from multiple locations requires a greater degree of flexibility and accessibility to applications. Second, the growing use of contractors requires a similar flexibility but accessibility for these employees increases the exposure of applications to unauthorized personnel. Third, the growing use of virtualization technology to make data centers more dynamic requires security solutions that do not rely on physical mapping to protect sensitive data and mission-critical applications.

"Most enterprise networks are unable to distinguish between guests, contractors and employees. Applications remain visible to all users, even if they are not authorized to access them, which creates an open invitation for malicious behavior," said Lawrence Orans, research director at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner, Inc. "Identity-aware networks enable security administrators to make unauthorized applications invisible and create the audit trails necessary for many regulations."

"Companies require access from such a diverse group of 'users' that traditional anonymous networks provide far too much visibility to the assets we try to protect," said Scott Ferguson, Apani vice president of product management. "A user's identity is playing a far larger role in access control than just login credentials." Apani's EpiForce 3.5 provides a single security solution that enables an identity-aware network without requiring network readdressing or reconfigurations, eliminating countless hours of maintenance to support new security initiatives. EpiForce 3.5 is a software-based alternative to using network firewalls and VLANs for security inside the corporate network. EpiForce 3.5 can be installed, deployed and configured on top of existing network infrastructure without requiring changes to the infrastructure.

According to Ferguson, identity-aware networks created with hardware force users to replace networking equipment or purchase expensive upgrades. The policy control point is the network which forbids the same level of granularity and identity-based encryption options that are available in EpiForce. "The promise of an identity-aware network is to have visibility into 'who is doing what on the network, regardless of their entry point.' However, we've found that enterprise decision makers are not willing to invest hundreds of hours of time to reconfigure their network to achieve the benefits. Many companies are looking to software to help achieve the goal."

EpiForce 3.5 provides the benefits of an identity-aware network to organizations with legacy systems, contemporary platforms and virtual environments. Working at the network layer, EpiForce deploys logical security zones that are transparent to network infrastructure, users and applications, enabling them to be quickly deployed and efficiently managed from a central console. Unlike hardware-based solutions that rely on physical locations and IP addresses, EpiForce creates an identity-aware network that delivers security to mixed physical and virtual data centers independent of these requirements.

EpiForce uniquely offers corporate security departments the following: -- The creation of logical security zones that control visibility and access to data and applications based on user and system authentication; -- User and policy-based encryption of data in motion to secure network and inter-VM traffic from internal and external threats; -- Satisfy regulatory requirements by isolating sensitive data and applications without readdressing or reconfiguring the underlying network; -- Secure legacy applications without recording or requiring additional user intervention; -- Manage access control and encryption policies on physical or virtual servers and clients from a central console, and from anywhere on the network; -- Report generation on security activities such as administrators, client software alerts, configurations, exceptions and system status through open software or standard tools such as Splunk and Crystal Reports; -- Support for over 50 platforms and legacy machines with high availability and fault-tolerant configurations. As a software solution, EpiForce has a low total cost of ownership, which is less costly to deploy and manage on an annual basis than security hardware. EpiForce is easy to manage, offers exceptional scalability and simple administration. Based on the EpiForce 3.5 platform, EpiForce VM extends the value of identity awareness to virtual data centers. EpiForce VM is compatible with VMware vSphere to protect VMs created and managed with VMware ESX Server 3.5, VMotion and vCenter.

EpiForce 3.5 is available immediately. More information on EpiForce can be obtained by visiting www.apani.com.

About Apani Apani' is the preeminent provider of identity-aware network solutions for large enterprises, protecting an organization's internal network and business-critical data from intruders.

Apani EpiForce', the company's flagship product, allows an organization to create an identity-aware network that protects data and network communications by isolating users, servers, clients and mission-critical data into security zones, regardless of system platform or physical location. EpiForce uses the identity of the user to control access to security zones and selectively encrypt traffic between users and machines on the network.

EpiForce provides flexibility and efficiency not available with traditional network security solutions. Based on software, 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 any hardware-centric solution. Policy enforced by EpiForce is persistent, enabling protected resources to be relocated without compromising security.

Working to provide an evolutionary improvement in efficiency, flexibility, manageability and total costs 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: Bob Menzies Lages & Associates Inc. 949/453-8080 [email protected]