IBM Delivers New Software to Help Clients Adopt Smarter Security and Compliance Management

ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software to deliver greater security and compliance to thousands of laptops, PCs and servers globally -- automating some of the most time-intensive IT tasks.

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The new software, delivered through IBM's recently closed BigFix acquisition, provides built-in intelligence that identifies all of a company's PCs, laptops, servers, point-of-sale and virtualized devices--wherever they are--then flags when devices are not in compliance with corporate IT standards.  Its single dashboard makes the proper fixes across 500,000 machines in minutes. Organizations can see, change, enforce and report on security policies and system configurations of all endpoint devices in real time – including those not continuously connected to the corporate network.

Securing the enterprise is a top priority to clients.  Worldwide security software revenue is forecast to surpass $16.5 billion in 2010, an 11.3 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $14.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

The general availability of new BigFix Unified Management Software Platform includes more than 200 customer- and partner-specific enhancements, most notably:

• Improved virtualization management: As companies increase the deployment of virtualized assets, having greater management of those assets is critical for security and compliance.  A major competitive differentiator of the new BigFix platform is its display of all virtual and physical assets in a single view to help locate, manage and protect virtualized and physical systems.

• New role-based interface: The redesigned user interface now includes role-specific views so IT staff can view the status of IT assets according to key functional areas such as endpoint management, security, audit compliance, provisioning or IT operations. Having role-based views helps optimize workflows and simplify the IT staff's experience.

Today's BigFix news reinforces IBM broad capabilities in helping companies secure and manage their IT assets and provide visibility, control and automation for the most time-intensive IT tasks.  IBM's comprehensive security capabilities address information security; threat and vulnerability management; identity and access management; application security and physical security.

"As organizations become increasingly more complex, virtualized and distributed, it's critical for them to take proactive steps to secure and manage their IT environment in a consolidated and automated way," said Amrit Williams, CTO of BigFix technology at IBM.  "With BigFix's new virtualization and interface breakthroughs, IT staff can better manage and secure their IT environments."

Capital Region Health Care, a charitable health delivery system based on community-based healthcare in New Hampshire, has been a customer for years and is an early adopter of the new BigFix software.

"With these new user interface changes -- particularly the ability to see all virtual and physical assets in a single place -- our IT staff will continue to be able to deliver reliable, rapid, and superior quality of service to our organization," said Mark Starry, director of IT infrastructure and security at Capital Region Health Care.  

Upgrading BigFix deployments to version 8.0 requires no reboots and customers can upgrade as fast as their change control allows, unlike other management infrastructures which require "forklift" or migration upgrades.  The software can also help expedite clients' migrations to Windows 7 operating system.  To help leverage IBM's global reach, BigFix software has general availability today in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and simplified Chinese. BigFix now supports more than 70 operating systems including SUSE, HP-UX, OEL and CentOS, adding to the 70 operating system variants already supported across Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux.

IBM announced the close of the BigFix acquisition on July 20. BigFix adds a set of highly regarded management technologies to the IBM software portfolio. The BigFix platform is used by organizations in government, finance, retail, educational, industrial and public utility sectors. BigFix software revolutionizes IT infrastructure management by replacing fragmented collections of single-purpose tools with the industry's only unified visibility and control architecture that consolidates up to 18 security, IT compliance, decision support, and green computing functions.

For more information on the BigFix software, visit www.bigfix.com, and for more information on IBM Security Solutions, visit http://www.ibm.com/security/.  

SOURCE IBM