NetIQ Broadens Horizons With Integrated Security, Partnerships

The product, dubbed the NetIQ Security Management Suite, combines new versions of three separate products designed to address vulnerability management, patch management, and overall security management. The partnerships, strategic alliances with LAN security vendors TruSecure and Shavlik, are expected to enable NetIQ to bolster its offerings in the area of vulnerability management.

According to Jim McGrath, senior director of product management, all of the news represents a "closed-loop" approach to managing enterprise security that gives customers the ability to respond to threats and ensure compliance with internal policies and government regulations.

"Organizations struggle from a resource perspective to find a balance between security and connectivity," he said. "This [product] and [these partnerships] enable resellers to go in and set up an immediate framework to monitor enterprise security and address all concerns in real-time."

On the product side, the NetIQ Security Management Suite is comprised of three components: NetIQ Security Manager 5.0, NetIQ Vulnerability Manager 5.0, and NetIQ Patch Manager 4.2. All three of the components are recent upgrades of older NetIQ products, and all are designed to leverage a customer's existing anti-virus, firewall, router and intrusion detection point solutions.

Specifically, NetIQ Security Manager 5.0 is the most robust of the three, enabling organizations to detect and prevent intrusions, and providing centralized real-time event monitoring with integrated event management and incident response across all areas of the IT infrastructure. The solution includes powerful log archival, analysis and forensic capabilities, a fault-tolerant and multi-stage correlation engine, and a Web-based access console for ease of use.

The other two components of the NetIQ Security Management Suite focus more on keeping safe networks safe. NetIQ Vulnerability Manager, formerly the VigilEnt Security Manager, handles security monitoring, policy compliance testing, and automatic vulnerability scanning. NetIQ Patch Manager tackles patch and configuration management and remediation.

Kenneth Phelan, CTO of Gotham Technologies, a NetIQ reseller in New York City, said these three round out the package nicely.

"The [NetIQ Security Management Suite] has something for everyone," he said. "In today's business environment, high-level security officers are overwhelmed by data, and these components help them make sense of the information they receive."

NetIQ's recent partnerships were designed to amplify this ROI even more. Through its partnership with Herndon, Va.-based TruSecure, NetIQ planned to integrate the latest vulnerability and security knowledge, providing customers with real-time access to current threats and current risk levels.

Through its partnership with Shavlik, NetIQ planned to tackle patch management, incorporating technology from the Rosedale, Minn., firm that ensures remediation for distributing and validating patches in Microsoft Windows environments. Both partnerships were effective immediately.

Pricing was not available for the NetIQ Security Management Suite as a whole, but McGrath said NetIQ Security Manager 5.0 would be priced at $2,500 per console and $1,100 per server. He added that NetIQ Vulnerability Manager 5.0 would carry a price of $3,655, and NetIQ Patch Manager would sell for $2,000.

All three components were expected to be available sometime in the next 30 days.