Altor Networks, the three-year-old start-up with the patent-pending hypervisor-based security for virtual data centers and clouds, is beta testing the next iteration of its purpose-built virtual server security product. It expects to release Altor 4.0, code named Duvel, in early Q3.

Altor started out with a stateful high-performance firewall and on-board intrusion detection and has added complete 360 degree virtual network visibility and monitoring, automated security and compliance assessment and reporting.

It argues that security and compliance concerns are holding back virtualization and has moved to address the safety of the traffic between VMs.

The widgetry, which will start at $1,500 a CPU socket, is supposed to provide a granular view of network traffic in the cloud.

The rev automatically detects unauthorized changes to VMs in virtual and cloud environments, quarantines any naughty virtual machines and alerts administrators to exceptions to corporate policy. It inspects all traffic to and from each VM to eliminate so-called blind spots, and enforces policies at the global, group and per-VM level.

The company says enterprises can granularly define security policies within zones of trust and precisely control how VMs in these zones communicate with one another, ensuring isolation between and within trust levels and allowing for precise micro-segmentation.

By leveraging what it calls introspection to collect VM attributes, such as installed applications, and coupling it with its knowledge of the virtual network, Altor 4.0 creates a database of control points that defines security policies and compliance rules. Altor then makes this data available in user interfaces (UIs) that let administrators build policies on global protocol handling, discrete regulation and how VMs should be configured.

Built-in templates help jumpstart the process of building policies while tools customize rulesets.

The start-up got a $10 million B round in February bringing total investment to $17 million. Juniper Networks is one of its backers.

Altor's virtualization security solutions are currently protecting Nielsen Corporation and the US Army's Human Resource Command.