These features are important to IT managers who need to make a full contribution to their organization's compliance initiatives. They can reduce exposure to the risk of operators working as administrators and remove almost all sources of operational error. The status of application data may, as a result, be guaranteed to Auditors.
The technology underpinnings of the Automated Edition are built on the proven COSduty-SSA, an advanced operations workflow management and security solution supplied by Sun Partner Open Systems Management. The administration tool can be expanded to the full functionality of COSduty-SSA at any time. The Automated Edition benefits include:
- Strict role-based access controls on operators and privileged users deliver much improved security in all aspects of IT operations
- service levels may be calculated and reported through the monitoring of procedures
- Operational errors are practically eliminated because procedures are pre-programmed and tested
- Skilled administrators, previously required to run privileged procedures, are released to develop new ones
The full COSduty -SSA is a software package combining operations workflow and privileged user management, used by enterprises with an IT infrastructure incorporating Unix and/or Linux servers. The following are its primary functions.
Improves security: Administration and operations tasks in a distributed systems environment, whether at the operating system, database or application level, are often carried out by staff who have acquired privileged access (administrator) permissions. The Automated Edition procedures normally requiring such privilege to be pre-defined, launched from a menu and assigned to non-administrators to run in a secure, audited environment.
On the few remaining occasions where privileged access is required, such users can still be restricted to a pre-authorized subset of commands, relevant to their status, for use at a particular time and on particular systems, with all keystrokes being audited.
Enforces preferred practice and standards: Programmed, delegated and scheduled procedures always run as they were designed, at the right time, with performance and outcomes audited. Standards and best practice are thereby enforced, using Sun preferred practices in the Sun i-Runbook Automated Edition.
Improves service levels: Programmed and delegated procedures prevent bottlenecks by bypassing the data center's dependence on a few key individuals. Errors are virtually eliminated as technical knowledge is built-in rather than demanded from individuals as they attempt to compose complex command sequences at the keyboard. Housekeeping tasks are reliably repeatable; junior staff are made more productive.
