CA Extends Identity Management, Compliance Offerings

CA strengthened its security and compliance product lineups Monday, debuting a number of new and updated identity and access management applications and tools for ensuring that IT departments meet corporate and government security regulations and policies. The vendor also unveiled software for ensuring corporate compliance with software licenses.

"Compliance is what really drove these releases," said Lina Liberti, vice president of CA security management products, in an interview. Companies not only need to implement security technologies to protect their IT networks, she said, but they have to prove that adequate security systems are in place and that those systems are being sustained. The products join seven others CA released in October and November 2007, collectively known as CA Identity and Access Management (CA IAM) r12.

Topping the list is CA Security Compliance Manager, a new product that automates processes for determining which systems employees can access and what they are allowed to do, as well as who granted authorization for those activities. Such information is critical for identifying security policy and compliance violations, Liberti said. The application carries out security tasks such as certification and attestation, orphan and active accounts reporting, and actionable remediation and validation. The product is available now.

Also shipping today is an update to the CA Access Control Premium Edition application that helps companies manage policy and regulatory compliance regarding host-system access. The software provides more advanced compliance reporting capabilities, including more out-of-the-box reports and the ability to feed data to third-party databases for additional reporting. It also provides a more advanced policy management infrastructure for large-scale deployments, including managing thousands of client devices from a single server and logical host grouping for simplified administration. And for the first time the product manages access to virtualized environments.

CA also said it is working on a new release of CA Identity Manager, the vendor's software for creating, managing and removing security identities for employees. Liberti said the company is streamlining the product's architecture and making it easier to install, configure and administer. The new release, due out within several months, also will offer expanded reporting capabilities and more out-of-the-box reports and standard integration with SAP's Business Objects reporting software.

The enhanced workflow capabilities are the most significant improvements in the identity management application suite, says Phillip Lentz, CTO of Logic Trends, an Atlanta-based solution provider that focuses on identity management tasks such as single sign-on and managing the user identity lifecycle. "In the past it has been somewhat challenging to do customized workflows," Lentz said of earlier versions. And the software's new compliance reporting features will help Logic Trends meet customer demands for a central reporting database for all compliance activities.

"Companies are not just talking about compliance, they are moving toward automating compliance," said Nitin Khadse, director of the eServices security practice at Rolta North America, an Atlanta-based solution provider and CA channel partner. Compliance tools like CA's are a necessary addition to any company's identity management and access control systems.

CA also unveiled CA Software Compliance Manager, an add-on module for its CA IT Asset Management solution for tracking software assets and their licenses, to help companies comply with license agreements and meet audit requirements. A date for the product's general availability was not disclosed.

CA also announced that its CA Advanced Systems Management product integrates with VMware VirtualCenter and supports Sun Microsystems' Logical Domains (LDOM).