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	Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Discuss this article Flame the author     In this article Introduction BindView Development Corp. bv-Control 7.2 and Policy Operations Center 4.2 Configuresoft Enterprise Configuration Manager 4.0 with Security Update Manager 2.0 Pedestal Software SecurityExpressions 3.0 Symantec Enterprise Security Manager 5.5 PoliVec Security Policy Automation Suite (Builder 2.6, Scanner 3.5, Enforcer 1.1) NetIQ VigilEnt Security Manager 4.0 Computer Associates eTrust Policy Compliance 7.4 How We Tested Report Card

Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) excels on reporting--the level of detail is certainly on par with that of Configuresoft ECM. In fact, the reports are so well designed that we needed to do very little customization. Roll-ups down to technical details are available within a few clicks. Unfortunately, ESM subjected us to some deployment difficulties, and its pricing places it at the high end of the spectrum.

ESM uses agents to gather data from remote hosts, and the agents can be centrally deployed--in theory, anyway. The process is somewhat convoluted, however, requiring that you build a temporary share on your management station and install a remote update agent on the targets. The manager should then instruct the remote update services to connect to the share on the management station to install the software and register with the manager; once successful, the remote update service will be removed from the target, and the share is also removed. We say should because we couldn't get any of our targets to connect back to the installation share on the manager, and Symantec couldn't figure out a fix. There is a silent installer, however, that we used with success.

We used predefined reports to get a view of our network. For the roll-ups, ESM scores and totals misconfigurations for a measure of risk or vulnerability. While good for making generalizations about population status, the scoring is somewhat arbitrary. In this case it's in the details, where the devil resides, that ESM shines. The detail reports provided easy-to-understand information about each issue, how it was resolved, and sometimes even potential difficulties that may result.