Press Release

OSM releases latest version of Operations Workflow and Privileged User Management package
COSduty-SSA for UNIX, Linux and Windows^®

OSM's latest COSduty-SSA v4.0 software provides Data Center Managers more and improved facilities to support Enterprise Compliance initiatives. Used for managing both operators and privileged users (system administrators), the product delivers strength and flexibility improvements in the areas of access control, activity logging, automation and reporting. Systems running Windows^® may now be included among the managed servers, alongside UNIX and Linux.

ASCOT, UK and SEATTLE, WA, USA, February 1st, 2006: UK and USA based software house, Open Systems Management Ltd ("OSM") today announced the general availability of v4.0 of the Operations Workflow Scheduling and Privileged User Management package for users of UNIX, Linux and Microsoft Windows^® systems, COSduty-SSA (SSA, Secure Shell Auditing). This release is a significant update to the previous v3.1 and adds both refinement and strength to several functional areas as well extending the product's scope.

Data Centers in many organizations have been hard at work in recent times working to strengthen internal access controls and monitoring procedures so as to regulate the actions of operations and system administration staff. In the absence of management software, they often have to work as privileged users ("root" on UNIX or Linux systems, "administrator" on Windows) with the result that they have unrestricted, unmonitored access to all parts of their systems. However trustworthy they may be, such access prevents Data Center management from being able to assure the integrity of application data and therefore unable to make the necessary guarantees to satisfy auditors for compliance purposes.

COSduty-SSA operates in two distinct, yet related, functional areas:

• Control and management of the procedures and workflow performed by Data Center operators
• Management and monitoring of administrators when working as Privileged Users

In the first mode, COSduty-SSA facilitates the capture of operations' procedures, some of which may require privileged access, and to delegate them via a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to operators, subject to access control and activity logging. Procedures may acquire system privileges to run but the user launching them does not need to possess privileges personally.

COSduty-SSA is used in the second (SSA, Secure Shell Auditing) mode on those occasions when a system administrator cannot avoid logging in with super-user privileges. Administrators must request a privileged session on the designated system at a particular time and are then granted access, or otherwise, to the appropriate and limited sub-set of commands needed to perform the required task. All keystrokes are recorded for future possible audit and analysis.

Among the many new and updated features in COSduty-SSA v4, the following are significant:

• Duties may be written to request data items to be entered at run-time
• The product may be configured to use OSM's COSbatch job scheduler to manage automatic duties
• Duties may be assigned to named individual users in addition to user roles
• Duties may be switched from running in the foreground to the background and subsequently stopped
• A single duty may be targeted to run on a group of hosts rather than just one
• Administrators authorized to use SSA may be members of more than one access group
• A new facility to terminate SSA sessions that have remained idle for a specified time
• Password management and secure storage facility (sometimes known as a "password vault")
• RDP-enabled secure administration of Windows servers

OSM's MD and CEO, Leslie Jackson, said, "We are very pleased with this latest release of COSduty-SSA which, by combining management of both IT operations and administration, appears to be unique in the market. Customers buy the product to meet their needs in respect of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and the like, then find that it delivers an unexpected RoI even when compliance benefits are removed from the arithmetic"

COSduty-SSA v4 is available immediately from OSM. A white paper on COSduty-SSA can be downloaded from COSduty white papers.

About OSM

Open Systems Management (OSM) – a privately held company, founded in 1988 and based out of Ascot, UK and Seattle, WA, USA – develops and markets operations, security, identity and systems management applications for users of UNIX, Linux and Microsoft Windows^® systems. OSM is backed by 3i, one of Europe’s largest venture capital investors. Notable customers include West Corporation, Duke Energy, Lloyds TSB Bank, St Jude Medical, and Northumbrian Water.

Web addresses: http://www.cosduty.com and http://www.osmcorp.com

For further information, contact Peter Nicholas:

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in this site are recognized by Open Systems Management Ltd.

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