Active Reasoning Announces Availability of System 5 of its IT Governance Automation Software.

Policy Mapping Database[TM] Simplifies Enforcement of Policies; SNMP Support Extends Solution to Network Devices

SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Active Reasoning, a leading provider of IT Governance Automation solutions, today announced the availability of Active Reasoning System 5, the latest version of its policy enforcement software.

The software is targeted at organizations that need a way to enforce the IT policies and controls they have established in order to avoid revenue loss and cost overruns that can come as a result of outages and downtime. Active Reasoning System 5 allows businesses to embed IT policy controls within business systems and applications to provide real-time change detection and configuration auditing. This helps customers meet service level agreements, lower operational risk and reduce costs.

Defining and adhering to standards-based IT best practices and policies is a fundamental requirement for operating a reliable, high-performing and compliant IT infrastructure. Active Reasoning System 5 eliminates the reliance on point solutions and inefficient manual processes that make it expensive and difficult to enforce policies. Fortune 500 businesses can now detect, validate and report unauthorized changes and out-of-policy actions on the entire IT infrastructure, in realtime, making immediate and effective correction a reality.

"Companies don't struggle with creating controls and policies; the challenge is policing them," said William R. Winters, Active Reasoning's chairman and CEO. "Unlike competing products, Active Reasoning System 5 provides a complete platform to operationalize IT policies and controls. The software has been enhanced based on feedback from our Fortune 500 customers, and provides both pre-defined controls mapping and complete customizability. Active Reasoning System 5 enhances the security posture and forensic capabilities of IT organizations."

"Companies that approach IT policies and industry compliance with a top-down risk orientation and holistic mindset can enforce controls that satisfy multiple objectives," said Vivian Tero, compliance infrastructure analyst at IDC. "These same companies can focus on IT infrastructure and change management initiatives to ensure control objectives improve efficiency, mitigate risks and reduce manual processes and cost. End-to-end IT governance automation solutions offer the value proposition of automating policy adherence across disparate policies, standards and regulations."

Active Reasoning System 5 includes these features:

Policy Mapping Database[TM] (PMDB) - A feature unique to Active Reasoning that provides automatic mapping of policy frameworks and controls to the users, applications, systems, network devices, files and databases that need to be monitored in order to enforce those policies. Available modules provide pre-defined PCI and ITIL controls, simplifying deployment.

Continuous Change Detection - Unlike products that take periodic "snapshots" of monitored systems, Active Reasoning System 5 offers realtime detection, logging and alerting of unauthorized changes and out-of-compliance actions to facilitate remediation.

SNMP Event Monitoring - This new feature lets Active Reasoning System 5 collect event and change information from network devices, in addition to applications and servers, giving IT departments more complete coverage for their security, reliability and compliance needs.

Enterprise Risk Dashboard - Enterprise-wide perspective of how well an organization's operational activity is following its defined policies and controls across the entire IT infrastructure.

Enhanced Security and Forensic Capabilities - Continuous event correlation combined with real-time diagnosis and policy violation alerts mitigate IT infrastructure risk and enforce controls (logic bombs, unauthorized changes, etc.)

Closed-Loop Change Management - Active Reasoning System 5 can be integrated with change management systems from BMC/Remedy and HP OpenView ServiceCenter (Peregrine). Bidirectional communication lets Active Reasoning compare changes with open tickets, close open tickets, open emergency tickets, or flag changes that don't have tickets.

Active Reasoning System 5 represents the next step in Active Reasoning's strategy to fully automate enterprise-wide IT controls for IT Policy Enforcement and IT Governance Automation so that IT organizations can improve service delivery, mitigate operational risk and reduce IT control costs.

About Active Reasoning

Active Reasoning is the leading provider of IT Controls Automation Software for IT Policy Enforcement & IT Governance Automation. The Active Reasoning platform operationalizes standards such as ITIL & COBIT, detecting, validating, and reporting unauthorized changes and out-of-policy actions on the IT infrastructure in real time. Active Reasoning helps Fortune 500 clients improve performance, mitigate operational risk and reduce expenses. Active Reasoning is backed by top-tier venture partners including ComVentures, ArrowPath Venture Partners, ONSET Ventures, and InterWest Partners. For more information, visit the company's website at www.activereasoning.com.