The newest release of NetVision's access auditing and management suite features enhanced reporting on the state of access rights in the organization and support for user activity and permission changes in NetApp network attached storage (NAS). NetVision's suite is focused on activity monitoring and access rights status reporting, what Steve Coplan, senior analyst in The 451 Group's Enterprise Security Practice, calls this access auditing or access visibility auditing. It's focused on Active Directory, as well as Novell eDirectory as access control mechanisms to corporate file shares.
"There is a lot of valuable data sitting in file share," said Coplan. "You can authenticate someone to that file share, but you don't necessarily know what resides in that file share or what that authentication should or shouldn't authorize users to do."
This visibility, he said is an essential first step to developing to developing an effective identity and access management program. "Until I know who is accessing what," he said, "I can't begin to define what's at risk and what are appropriate policies."
NetVision's prime market is with mid-sized enterprises and their average customer has 5,200 IT supported users, they say. The focus on assessment of permissions in Active Directory and file shares is well suited for these organizations, in contrast to large enterprise Identity Management (IdM) suites from CA, IBM, Novell, Oracle and RSA, Coplan said. NetVision's competition in the access auditing space comes more from companies like Quest Software and Varonis.
NVMonitor provides real-time monitoring of user activity (opening, creating, modifying files) and permission changes. The new support for NetApp NAS reflects the way many organizations are using NAS for active file sharing in the enterprise, as well as back-end storage, as storage prices come down and file sharing develops, often as an ad hoc process.
