Vanguard Unveils Vanguard Offline to Test Impact of RACF Commands, Prevent Errors Before Changes Go Live

LAS VEGAS, March 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanguard Integrity Professionals, the experts on information security for System z^®, today unveiled Vanguard Offline™ a new application that reduces RACF errors and problems with System z production environments. Vanguard Offline, available immediately, is a simulation-testing application that allows security administrators to test and analyze how new RACF commands will impact users and production processes before commands are executed in a production environment.

"The unique capabilities of Vanguard Offline deliver significant time savings to security administrators by preventing unexpected errors and lockouts, and reducing the time required to troubleshoot and resolve them," said Brian Marshall, vice president of research and development at Vanguard. "Vanguard Offline makes it easy to test the impact of new commands without leaving the production environment, which reduces the need for organizations to have a dedicated test LPAR for RACF. If problems are detected when commands are tested, users can also perform what-if analyses on an 'offline copy' of the RACF database that runs in the production environment but does not impact production."

With Vanguard Offline, security administrators execute commands against a copy of their RACF database, as if they were executing them live, then test and analyze the potential impact of the new commands on the system by running the same reports they already run against their production database. The reports Vanguard Offline creates include:

• All access that was previously allowed and is now denied.
• All access that was previously denied and is now allowed.
• All access that was changed.
• All access that was changed and unchanged.

If there are problems with new commands, security administrators can perform what-if analyses on their RACF databases to quickly create more specific profiles, determine the impact of new profiles or evaluate how profile additions or deletions should be modified to eliminate future problems.

Vanguard Offline can conduct impact analyses using historical data about access activity and which profiles were used to gain access to resources to more accurately predict how proposed changes will affect the system. In addition, Vanguard Offline improves security controls and audit processes by making it easy for security administrators to determine how users gained access to specific resources, remove any previously undetected unauthorized access, verify that changes made to user access privileges are complete, and report complete and accurate user access information to auditors.

For more information about Vanguard Offline, visit www.go2vanguard.com.

About Vanguard Integrity Professionals
Vanguard Integrity Professionals, an IBM Business Partner, provides enterprise security software and services that solve complex security and regulatory compliance challenges and deliver a rapid return on investment. With automated solutions for Audit and Compliance, Operational Security and Intrusion Management, Vanguard enables government agencies and corporations around the world to ensure continuous monitoring of System z, safeguard cloud computing secure domains, and protect critical data and applications from cybersecurity threats. Vanguard provides 24/7/365 live customer support from the United States. Support is also provided locally in other countries.

IBM, System z and z/OS are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

SOURCE Vanguard Integrity Professionals