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SAN FRANCISCO (RSA) – February 28, 2012 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader in business security solutions, today announced that it is expanding its virtualization offerings to soon include its award-winning line of extensible content security (XCS) appliances. Designed for VMware virtualized environments, the new WatchGuard XCSv series of appliances provide unparalleled web content, data loss prevention (DLP), email and messaging security.

"There are many reasons and benefits for why businesses, large and small, are turning to virtualized IT solutions," said Roger Klorese, Director of Product Management at WatchGuard Technologies. "WatchGuard has already taken the lead in virtualizing its firewalls, and now the company moves security forward by expanding its virtualized offerings to soon include the full array of XCS appliances."

WatchGuard XCSv

Four editions of XCSv will soon be available to meet the needs of small, midsize and large-scale distributed environments. These virtual versions provide the same level of web content, DLP, email and messaging security offered by WatchGuard XCS hardware appliances, including advanced anti-spam and malware protection, zero-hour threat outbreak response and easy to use management and reporting features.

Because multiple instances of XCSv can run on a single vSphere hypervisor, the WatchGuard virtual appliance is ideal for managed security services providers (MSSPs), hosting providers, and larger IT organizations who wish to run separate logical XCS web security and content gateways on the same host system.

Furthermore, because the WatchGuard XCSv series can be deployed adjacent to messaging and web servers within the virtual infrastructure, and even across internal networks between virtual machines in the same cluster or on the same server, XCSv is well suited to implement web and messaging security policies between domains, applications, user communities or tenants. Even in small offices with a single server running consolidated workloads, an instance of XCSv can be run on the same server to provide web, DLP, email and messaging security.

WatchGuard XCSv will be initially supported on VMware vSphere versions 4.1 and 5.0. Pricing and availability are not being announced at this time; however, a limited beta will be offered within 30 days of this announcement. Parties interested in participating in the WatchGuard XCSv beta should register at: https://watchguard.wufoo.com/forms/sign-up-for-the-watchguard-xcsv-beta-program/

Klorese concludes, "By having both XTM and XCS product lines available as virtual solutions, businesses gain the benefits of complete protection for their entire network, their applications, data and users. No other vendor gives this level of depth and breadth of virtualized security solutions."