Tresys Technology is a US firm busy in the IT security market since 1999.
So far the company mostly focused on providing solutions around the OS hardening framework Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux).
Now the company decides to enter the virtualization market and leverage its expertise in hardening to build a security wrapper (aka sandbox) for virtual machines: VM Fortress.
This market has few but notable competitors: VMware, with its not so popular ACE (which may even disappear into Workstation over time), Microsoft with the just acquired Kidaro Managed Workspaces (now renamed Enterprise Desktop Virtualization), Sentillion, with vThere and recently MokaFive with their brand new Virtual Desktop Solution.
At its first release VM Fortress only supports VMware Workstation 6 and Player 2 virtual machines but unlike its competitors the product is available for Linux host operating systems (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6).
The security engine is SELinux so this wrapper is only capable of enforcing strong access control on virtual resources: virtual networks, USB devices, removable storage, shared folders and even the virtual desktop (limiting the cut & paste feature).
There’s no sign of other features that competitors offer like virtual disks encryption or expiration.
If Tresys wants to compete on this segment, despite nobody is currently offering its wrapper for Linux, then it will have to add more features very soon.
The product is available now despite the company didn’t reveal its price and licensing scheme.
Tresys Technology has been included in the virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Radar.
The Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.