Guardium Adds Support for New IBM Platforms, Doubles Number of Platforms with V5.0 Release; Enhances Ability to Create Unified Controls Across Heterogeneous, Multi-Vendor Database Infrastructures.

WALTHAM, Mass. -- Guardium, the database security company, today launched a major new release of its network-based platform for protecting sensitive information stored in critical systems such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP and custom enterprise applications.

By adding mainframe support and doubling the number of database platforms supported, Guardium SQL Guard(TM) V5.0 makes it even easier to implement a unified set of policy-based controls across heterogeneous, multi-vendor database infrastructures.

In addition to strengthening real-time controls over corporate information assets, the new release enhances operational efficiency by automating and consolidating compliance reporting across a broader range of platforms. SQL Guard eliminates the complexity of having to reconfigure each DBMS platform and produce separate reports for key regulations such as SOX. Organizations can now automatically produce aggregated, enterprise-wide views of all unusual data access patterns, privileged user activities and unauthorized changes to sensitive database structures.

New Platforms

The Guardium solution now supports all IBM production platforms, including both IBM DB2 for z/OS mainframes and IBM Informix, in addition to previous support for IBM DB2 on Linux, Unix and Windows. This makes it well-suited to protecting confidential data for multi-tier Web-based applications built upon SOA architectures.

Based on customer demand, SQL Guard V5.0 also supports additional new platforms and versions including:

--Oracle 10g Release 2, in addition to previous support for Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g Release 1

--Microsoft SQL Server 2005, in addition to previous support for SQL Server 2000

--Sybase IQ, in addition to previous support for Sybase ASE 

"Organizations typically use several database platforms for their vital corporate information. We've created a practical way to control access to data repositories without interrupting ongoing business processes," said Phil Neray, vice-president of marketing, Guardium. "Guardium is transforming companies' data governance approach from periodic manual audits to automated and centralized processes that continuously monitor all network traffic in order to protect the integrity of corporate information assets."

The Guardium platform is the most widely-used network solution for database security and auditing. The system monitors all database activity across the enterprise, without compromising the performance of critical production applications. A multi-tier architecture with centralized policy-based management provides proven scalability for large and distributed environments.

About Guardium

Guardium, the database security company, develops the most widely-used network solution for database security and auditing. By securing sensitive corporate information such as financial/ERP and personal identity data in real-time - and automating change controls and compliance reporting - Guardium protects the world's best-known brands while reducing the cost of IT governance and compliance.

Customers include: a top five U.S. bank; a top ten European financial services institution; a global consumer products manufacturer with over 100,000 employees; one of the largest North American oil and gas companies; and other companies worldwide in financial services, energy, manufacturing, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, media and entertainment, and government.

Named "Hot Pick" by Information Security magazine, Guardium's family of network appliances continuously monitor and prevent unauthorized access to databases. Guardium's patent-pending technology performs deep packet inspection on all network traffic and detailed SQL linguistic analysis to detect or block specific commands based on policies. Unlike traditional log-based or DBMS-resident approaches, Guardium's technology provides fine-grained database activity monitoring without impacting the performance or stability of key production applications, while supporting the separation of duties required by auditors.

The Guardium software suite includes specialized modules for SOX, PCI, Basel II and data privacy laws. A centralized multi-tier architecture provides scalability for large and distributed enterprises.

Guardium's partners include IBM, EMC, HP, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase, and the company is a member of IBM's prestigious Data Governance Council. For more information, please visit www.guardium.com or call 781-487-9400.

Copyright (C) 2006 Guardium. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Guardium, SQL Guard, and Safeguarding Databases are trademarks of Guardium, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective companies. Copying and redistribution of this material is expressly permitted by the copyright owner.