Active Reasoning Helps IT Organizations Meet Sarbanes-Oxley Requirements Through Increased Visibility into Change Activity.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Automated Auditing Solution Addresses Evolving Auditing Standards Through New Monitoring of Internal Database and Messaging Changes

Active Reasoning, a leading developer of policy-based data center management software, today announced the availability of new IT compliance auditing capabilities for its Compliance and Change Management solutions. The enhanced solutions provide companies with an audit trail by monitoring and reporting internal changes to critical IT components such as database and messaging applications that support financial flows and transactions. By increasing visibility and control, IT organizations are prepared to demonstrate compliance and are better equipped to meet evolving compliance issues. Additionally, IT organizations will lower costs and reduce time associated with meeting compliance requirements.

"During the first round of compliance filings, the slow process of manually auditing the effectiveness of IT control objectives consumed a lot of the IT organization's time and resources," said Marv Tseu, President and CEO of Active Reasoning. "In 2005, companies will need to automate this process. Today's announcement enables IT organizations to shift their focus back to day-to-day operations by automating the validation of IT control objectives across a broader range of the infrastructure."

According to John Van Decker, senior vice president at META Group, a leading provider of IT research, advisory services and strategic consulting, "Sarbanes-Oxley should be top of mind for every IT organization. Companies need to prepare for Sarbanes-Oxley requirements now and have the appropriate tools in place as they prepare to meet the regulatory standards and prevent issues such as fraud, errors and profit erosion. Automated monitoring of key IT control points will play a key role in successfully deploying a Sarbanes-Oxley strategy will measure up to the required standard."

The Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOA) is perhaps the most important piece of legislation affecting corporate governance, financial disclosure and the practice of public accounting since the US securities laws in the 1930s. Since Sarbanes-Oxley doesn't explicitly talk about the IT organization, compliance requirements are evolving and being defined by auditors and other emerging standards. As companies respond to the legislation in the future, they will be further challenged to demonstrate ongoing adherence and commitment. Because unauthorized changes or changes yielding unintended consequences can negatively affect the data integrity of financial reporting, auditors are taking a closer look at internal application elements and requiring companies to monitor change activities to these IT infrastructure components.

Active Reasoning's Compliance and Change Management solutions support Sarbanes-Oxley requirements by auditing the effectiveness of critical IT controls through the detection and reporting of individual actions such as file changes, logins, and process activity. Today's announcement complements Active Reasoning's IT compliance capabilities by now reporting database schema changes to Oracle, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server databases. In addition, the enhanced solutions detect internal configuration changes to IBM WebSphere's messaging server. These control points are essential to compliance requirements, as financial data is housed in databases and delivered to transaction points through messaging technology.

Detected Changes

Active Reasoning detects and reports the following internal application changes:

--Oracle 8i and 9i, SQL Server 7, 2000, and IBM DB2 Databases: Schema changes including tables, views and stored procedures. Active Reasoning can also monitor any database values such as pricing changes to a product or an access password deleted from an employee record.

--WebSphere MQ 5.3 Messaging: Configuration changes such as channels, name list, and queues, and queue managers.

These internal application changes compliment Active Reasoning's real-time change detection capabilities. This information is stored within Active Reasoning's time-based information model for IT auditing, trend analysis and problem resolution:

--File modification, deletion and addition by individual user

--Process start and stop activity by individual user

--Individual user login and logout activity

Active Reasoning can audit this change activity with data from Change Management systems such as Remedy or Peregrine to determine compliance with change management processes and procedures.

Pricing and Availability

The database and messaging monitoring capabilities are available today within Active Reasoning's Compliance and Change Management solutions. Pricing for these solutions starts at US $75,000.

About Active Reasoning

Active Reasoning develops policy-based data center management software that tracks, guides, and orchestrates people's actions in the delivery of IT services. By managing the intersection of people and technology, the company's solutions strengthen compliance, change management, IT operations, and process management. Active Reasoning is a privately held company founded in 2002 and headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. Active Reasoning's investors include ArrowPath Venture Capital, ComVentures, and ONSET Ventures. For more information, visit the company's website at www.activereasoning.com or call 650-404-9900.