Features

LANDesk Asset Manager – actually an add-in to the comprehensive LANDesk Management Suite 8.1 application – provides a host of valuable functionality.

Altiris speaks in terms of "lifecycle management," by which it means managing your IT-related assets throughout their useful term of operation. This is enabled by the provision of a core Notification Server, to which might be added a Server Provisioning Suite, a Client Management Suite , (CMS), and an Asset Management Suite, (AMS). The Altiris brochure also describes a utility named the Wise Package Studio which, as you might expect, provides for software distribution.

Centennial Discovery 4.51 is a comprehensive, but easy to use, auditing tool which might be used with a variety of client operating systems. It requires Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or later, a run-time version of which is supplied on the installation CD.

This product is a straightforward and competent auditing tool whose apparent simplicity and ease of use will appeal to many system administrators.

Intuit Track-It! is a comprehensive suite of integrated modules which provide some interesting and useful functionality. The product is available in three flavours of Single User, Standard (facilitating multiple users) and Enterprise, and is nicely presented throughout with good documentation.

PC-Duo Enterprise is a well presented application that effectively steers users through all major functions via well-considered dialogs. This "learn-as-you-go" approach will suit the busy network administrator with limited previous experience.

This is a very interesting application which enables you to monitor compliance with policies via audits against your IT infrastructure. This alone would represent valuable functionality, but Security Expressions does not stop there.

Praise be! A software vendor that supplies a comprehensive and well-written printed product manual, and a host of other documentation to leave you in no doubt about the product, and how best to use it.

Installing Unicenter takes a little longer than average, but the process is glitch-free and logical, setting the tone for the use of the product.

One of the

Pervasive's SQL database is designed to be embedded in applications designed for small to medium businesses. AuditMaster has been created to ensure that changes to the database are efficiently and accurately logged. The audit trail produced not only allows the database manager to keep track of routine changes, but also sends alerts if and when key data, such as staff salaries or catalog prices, are altered.

Encrypting files while becoming a necessary part of security has remained somewhat of complex beast to understand and perform. This product aims to strip away the hard work of encrypting batches of files coing into and going out of the enterprise.

Encrypting email is a must for the paranoid among us, and Crypto Anywhere provides the tools necessary to encrypt and decrypt email messages. Among its new features are Outlook integration and the ability to create an executable that can run off a floppy or flash disk, thereby circumventing the need to install software on a terminal when using Crypto Anywhere in an internet café.

The software prides itself on its ability to deal with more compression file types than WinZip as well as 256-bit AES encryption (which can be found in WinZip 9.0). Setting up is easy enough and offers a wizard just as WinZip does. The installation is slightly less convoluted than WinZip.