Over the last 12 months the security firm Tripwire took a series of steps to focus more on virtualization.
It first released a couple of free tool (ConfigCheck and OpsCheck) in collaboration with VMware to simplify the ESX hosts configuration management. Then it hired the well-known expert Stephen Beaver as its new Virtualization Evangelist. And finally the company released vWire, a configuration compliance tool that was very promising.
After just 6 months after the first release (vWire 1.0 was out in June 2009) the company announced that it has decided to permanently discontinue it and return to its core business.
The main reason behind this choice may be the upcoming release of ConfigControl, a competing product that VMware announced in January 2009 and that is expected to be tightly integrated in vSphere.
As virtualization.info highlighted many times in previous articles the expansion of VMware in every market segment is making much more expensive for new and existing partners to add value on top of vSphere. So they eventually turn their focus on competitors like Microsoft and Citrix or simply give up.
Update: Tripwire didn’t just discontinue vWire. The company let Steven Beaver go and he’s back on the market right now.
Before Tripwire, Beaver has been a virtualization architect for IBM Global Services for two years and he’s one of the Moderators at the VMware Community Forum (VMTN).
Additionally, he was one of the top speakers that presented at the virtualization.info’s Virtualization Congress 2009 in Las Vegas.