IBM Updates Secure Perspective Tool

June 3, 2008 Alex Woodie

IBM last week announced a new release of Secure Perspective, a multi-platform security tool that’s designed to make it easier to implement tight security policies using plain English phrases, as opposed to the cryptic commands and configurations used by most platforms.

According to IBM, Secure Perspective enables customers to create and implement data-centric security policies using non-technical language, or “natural language” in IBM lingo. The tool then converts this non-technical language policy into an enforceable set of system-level commands that can be readily implemented on the target platforms, which include i (i5/OS), AIX, and Windows.

IBM first announced Secure Perspective in April 2007 and delivered the software about two months later. That first release, which was priced at $1,500 per processor, was targeted at the System i market. In particular, it helped implement object-level security, considered to be the tightest form of security on the platform, but a difficult one to implement.

While IBM doesn’t spell it out in its software announcement, it appears that support for Windows and AIX systems is the new feature in the latest release. Customers now have the option of running Secure Perspective either on a Windows computer or an i-based Power Systems server (as opposed to an AIX-based Power Systems server; RS/6000 customers will need to run the software either on their AS/400 or Windows NT machine). IBM also talks about delivering access to Secure Perspective via the software as a service (SaaS) delivery method, which may be something worth checking out if you don’t mind sharing sensitive data concerning your servers’ security configurations over the Internet.

For more information, check out IBM’s United States Software Announcement 208-126.