News

Quarterly Newsletter - Vol 1 Issue 3
February 14, 2007
In this issue:

Greetings from Secure Vantage Technologies.  

This is going to be another very exciting year, with many new products to complement Microsoft’s existing and new range of Systems Center solutions. With 2007 comes Microsoft’s new System Center Operations Manager 2007 and associated Audit Collection service. We are very excited by what Microsoft has created here and will be launching more than a dozen products this year in support of it, as well as introducing many new services for our customers and partners to utilize. For those of you looking for a little more out-of-box we will also have some free downloads available. Find out more details below and on our website.
  
A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. In November we attended the ITForum in Barcelona Spain, where it was great to meet so many of our European customers and partners. We also visited Denmark and launched an optimized version of our System Controls MP for the Danish Government. On the product front we released our Reporting Event eXtension for MOM 2005 that allows customers to separate operations and security grooming while providing optimized archiving for long-term storage and reporting.
 
We look forward to continue working with everyone and delivering more security solutions for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, System Center Operations Manager 2007 and the Audit Collection Service (ACS). Like last year, we are sponsoring a number of events again including the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego CA this March.  Please do stop by our booth or CommNet and see some of our new solutions in action. 
  
If you have any comments, or know of anyone who would like to be on the circulation list and is not currently receiving it, please send us email at info@securvantage.com
 
We hope you enjoy reading this and find the information useful.
 
Cheers,
Jeremiah Beckett

President
www.SecureVantage.com 
jbeckett@securevantage.com 

Secure Vantage Update: New MOM 2005 Security Solutions Available
Volume 1, Issue 3  February 14th 2007  

In this Issue  

 
Security Solutions for Operations Manager 2007 and Audit Collection     
 
Over the last year Secure Vantage has been working closely with Microsoft to deliver a suite of security technology for System Center Operations Manager 2007 and the Audit Collection Service. This year we are launching several of those solutions for customers to optimize their investments in Operations Manager for security auditing and reporting.  
 
Secure Vantage 2007 Solutions page
 
Our solutions are divided into two primary knowledge libraries, Security Management Packs and Security Reporting Solutions. In addition we will offer free security solutions for customer download.
 
Our new security Management Packs are designed to provide advanced intrusion detection and security operations capabilities for Windows Servers and Workstations. In addition we’ve extended beyond our standard security event and group policy auditing to now include support for Microsoft Server applications like SQL Server, ISA, MIIS and others.  
 
With the new Audit Collection service we have built a suite of reporting solutions for you optimized to extend your reporting and auditing capabilities. With a core set of base reporting, tailored auditing reports, compliance guidance, archiving and consolidation features our base solutions provide the auditing foundation you’re looking for. Stay tuned as we announce more solutions built around the Audit Collection architecture. 
 
  
MOM 2005 Security Reporting with REX    
 
Do you currently use MOM 2005 to collect and report on security events? If you do, you will notice how, over time, your reports keep running slower and your database just keeps growing. Working with our customers we have built a Reporting Event eXtension (REX) for MOM 2005 that optimizes the database for historical security reporting.
  
REX introduces not only a rich new set of reports but lots of extended features designed to optimize the security reporting experience for MOM 2005 customers. REX introduces the following core services:
  
  • Optimizes data for reporting performance
  • Supports remote archiving of Security data
  • Separates Operations and Security event grooming
  • Allows filtering on any report attribute
  • Object Access event correlation between event 560 and 567
  • Cover Pages with customizable confidentiality statement 
  • Summary to Detail drilldown
So how do you get this new reporting package for MOM 2005? It’s available for free to all System Control MP customers. Check out the new features and reporting samples online REX
  
 
SQL2005 Security Auditing with MOM 2005

Introducing our first Application Security MP, the SQL Auditor for MOM 2005, customers can now audit application security events for SQL 2005 servers leveraging their existing infrastructure. The SQL Auditor introduces detailed application security auditing and operational views with standard Secure Vantage reporting as well. Auditing coverage is included for:  
 
  • Authentication Events
  • Account Management Activity  
  • Object Changes  
Request your Beta copy online
  
  
Danish Standards 484 compliance with MOM 2005 
 
Last November we worked closely with a key partner in Northern Europe , TopNordic, and a division of the Danish Government. The goal: to extend our base System Controls MP to provide support for the new Danish Standards 484 (DS484) regulation. The final solution consisted of new operations views mapped directly to the regulation controls, report usage guidance and a new REX reporting package built with integrated compliance knowledge guidance and advanced filtering.  The resulting SCMP for DS484 is the first formal regulation module released for the System Controls MP and introduces new operations and reporting features that can be used to support your own compliance governance efforts.

This year we will be launching several more regulation modules for the SCMP including coverage for CoBITs, FISMA, ISO, PCI, GLBA, HIPAA and others. 
 

Jay's Joint, Tips and Tricks   
  
  1. Passwords older than X
Do you need to know which passwords haven’t changed in 90 days or set to never expire? Looking for unused accounts based on last logon or just looking for specific account scenario’s in Active Directory? Then check out the SCMP Resource Kit which provides scripts for the scenario’s identified above and more.

 
  1. Reports and Computer Group filtering  
The Secure Vantage security reports for MOM 2005 include filterable parameters to limit your search results. By default one of those filters, Computer Group, is set to the primary Computer Group associated with the Management Pack. Depending on how you’ve configured your environment these computer groups will limit the results of your reports. The ‘Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Agents’ computer group should always include members and can be used to validate this filter.
  
  1. Report document maps not showing in IE7  
If you are using SQL 2000 Reporting Services and Internet Explorer v7 you may have noticed the document maps in our reports do not display. We have confirmed this behavior with Microsoft and, unfortunately there is no solution for this.  Your two options are therefore either to continue using ie6 when running reports on SQL2000 or, preferably upgrade to SQL 2005.

 

Calendar of Events   

  •  March 8th : California , Webcast, Regulatory Compliance with System Center Operations Manager 2007
  •  March 15th : California , Webcast, Regulatory Compliance with System Center Operations Manager 2007
  •  March 20th & 21st : Denmark , Seminar, DS484 Compliance with MOM2005
  •  March 26th - 30th: San Diego CA , Microsoft Management Summit 2007
  •  April 4th: Atlanta GA , Seminar/Lab, Regulatory Compliance with System Center Operations Manager 2007
  •  April 5th - 6th: San Diego CA, Security Log Secrets for Windows and Active Directory by Microsoft Security MVP Randy Franklin Smith
  •  April 24th: Charlotte NC, Seminar/Lab, Regulatory Compliance with System Center Operations Manager 2007
For additional information on events, please see: Events  
 
 

Looking Forward   

If you are interested in knowing about all the solutions we're launching in 2007, please mark your calendars and come to the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego California in March. We will be launching our entire 2007 roadmap and releasing a number of new solutions at the event. Our solutions will also be on show monitoring the MMS CommNet environment. So please take a look at how Microsoft is using our solutions, the come and visit us in the expo pavilion. And for those who cannot make it: stay tuned.  We will provide more details on our website and newsletter later this spring. 

© 2006 Secure Vantage Technologies Inc.

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