Compliance tools meet government regulations

With the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Patriot Act mandating corporate adherence to reporting guidelines, vendors across such diverse segments as ERP, search, document management, and security are flooding the marketplace with compliance toolsets.

PSS Systems this week will introduce compliance software designed to apply and enforce policies on distributed documents. Last week, IBM and Symantec unwrapped infrastructure- and security-focused compliance offerings.

An organization's needs will vary widely depending on how various regulations apply, but the key technologies involve workflows, internal control software, records management software, and CRM or compliant management software, said Erica Rugullies, an analyst at Forrester Research.

"There are a ton of small vendors offering point products that can help with compliance," she said. "There may be a place for those products, but to avoid a huge number of point tools, IT organizations should first look at what they have. Many companies already have the building blocks for compliance within their IT organization."

The PSS1 system includes software that automatically applies policies to distributed documents and enforces the policies without involving end-users, according to Gary Kinghorn, director of marketing. The PSS1 central server, dubbed Policy Authority, is the main hub for centralized policy definition, such as user and group definitions, and document classifications.

"Content management, server, and storage [products] are all based on a repository," Kinghorn said. "They say, 'You put your stuff here and we will control it.' But anything that comes out of the product is unmanaged."

IBM unveiled a compliance strategy that packages a set of infrastructure products with services.

The nine hardware, software, and services offerings include IBM Email Archive and Records Management Service, IBM DB2 Content Manager for Data Retention Compliance, IBM Lotus Workplace for Business Controls and Reporting, and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Data Retention.

"IBM customers need a technology provider and software provider but also a business adviser to make it all come together. The glue that pulls [the packaged offerings] together is the business service consulting," said Steve McLaurin, a partner at IBM Business Consulting Services.

Security vendor Symantec, for its part, rolled out the Enterprise Security Manager 6.0, which can perform more than 2,000 security and vulnerability checks on business applications and platforms to ensure that systems are compliant.