Altiris, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRS), a pioneer of IT lifecycle management solutions that reduce the total cost of owning IT resources, today announced it has joined the Network Admission Control (NAC) program, an industry effort led by Cisco Systems to address the costs associated with the remediation of malicious threats to enterprise networks.
Through this interoperability, Altiris customers will be able to distribute the Cisco Trust Agent, a key component of the NAC program, in addition to other critical content such as software applications, updates, patches, and configuration changes, via a hands-free, policy-based, enterprise management solution.
Altiris will bring the following benefits to the NAC program:
- Health check – Altiris® provides comprehensive inventory discovery and impact analysis which can alert administrators on machine state and helps determine the next step. Health policies can be defined based on any combination of elements from the extensive Altiris configuration management database and patch repository.
- Provisioning – Altiris configuration management will help NAC-enabled infrastructures set a solid baseline and keep machines in a known good state.
- Remediation – Altiris client and server management will provide integrated patch lifecycle management to help bring unhealthy computers into compliance via policy-based, hands-free remediation for all types of devices.
“Protecting customer networks, and the applications running on those networks, from malicious threats is a business-critical priority for all organizations,” said Russell Rice, director of product marketing in Cisco's Security Technology Group. “The integration between select Altiris systems and elements of the Network Admission Control program will help deliver threat protection to NAC-enabled networked computing environments and further extend customer investments.”
Dwain Kinghorn, Altiris CTO, said, “Altiris recognizes computing security as a critical component of Altiris IT lifecycle management. We currently provide our customers with integrated solutions for vulnerability assessment, patch management, security event monitoring and automated, policy-based remediation. Altiris continues to work with industry leaders like Cisco to help customers reduce management costs while securing computing resources via initiatives like the quarantine-capable network.”
NAC is a Cisco Systems sponsored industry initiative that uses the network infrastructure to enforce security policy compliance on all devices seeking to access network computing resources, thereby limiting damage from viruses and worms. NAC is part of the Cisco Self-Defending Network, an initiative to increase network intelligence in order to enable the network to automatically identify, prevent, and adapt to security threats.
More information about NAC can be found at: www.cisco.com/go/nac.
About Altiris
Altiris, Inc. is a pioneer of IT lifecycle management software that allows IT organizations to easily manage desktops, notebooks, thin clients, handhelds, industry-standard servers, and heterogeneous software including Windows, Linux and UNIX. Altiris automates and simplifies IT projects throughout the life of an asset to reduce the cost and complexity of management. Altiris client and mobile, server, and asset management solutions natively integrate via a common Web-based console and repository. For more information, visit www.altiris.com
Note on Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our ongoing work with industry leaders like Cisco to help customers reduce management costs while securing computing resources via initiatives like the quarantine-capable network. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including, but not limited to, difficulties and delays in the integration of our products and solutions with other NAC program technologies and initiatives; and such other risks as identified in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2004, and from time to time in other reports filed by Altiris with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
##
Altiris is a registered trademark of Altiris, Inc. in the U.S. and in other countries. The other company names or products mentioned are or may be trademarks of their respective owners. |