ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES ANNOUNCES IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR OCTOBER

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:49:03 +0000

EMA analysts will share insight on Green IT, service catalog trends, ITIL in security and risk management, network management and ITIL v3

BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 30, 2008 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced it will host a number of free Webinars focused on IT management during the month of October 2008.

The EMAWebinars set for October include:

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=greenitwebpr1008&bs=greenitweb1008

Steve Brasen, EMA analyst, will share highlights from EMA primary research on power management practices in the data center and on the desktop. Topics will include: determining actual energy costs associated with traditional computing models, evaluating cost savings that can be achieved by reducing power consumption, identifying the most popular green IT implementations and exploring the primary business concerns inhibiting green IT deployments.

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
Service Catalog 2008: Trends and Tips
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=scconstwebpr1008&bs=scconstws1008

This Webinar, led by EMA senior consultant Stewart Cole, will explore findings from a recent EMA study on service catalog best practices in the enterprise. Key issues he will discuss include reasons to implement a service catalog, real-world benefits from service catalog implementations and how to measure the success of your service catalog.

Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
How to Apply ITIL to Security and Risk Management
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=bomgaroctwebpr1008&bs=bomgaroctweb1008

EMA research director Scott Crawford, Bomgar co-founder and vice president of product strategy Nathan McNeill, and BMC solutions architect Doug Bagley will explain how to apply ITIL to security and risk management initiatives. They will cover the gaps in IT management disciplines that plague security, what ITIL is and why so many are adopting it and how ITIL best practices improve security.

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
Network Management 2008: Megatrends in Technology, Process and Organization
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=nmwebpr1008&bs=nmweb1008

EMA vice president Dennis Drogseth and EMA senior analyst Jim Frey will share key results from the latest EMA research study on network management. Drogseth and Frey will explore how networking organizations are changing to support systems management and the management of remote locations. They also will provide answers to popular questions, including what are the top issues with network management today, where should companies look for help, what are top priorities in network management, and what types of organizational, cultural and process changes are occurring in parallel with changes in technology.

Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 - 11 a.m. EDT
ITIL V3: Making Business Services Serve the Business
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=asgitilwebpr1008&bs=asgitilweb1008

ITIL version 3, the latest version of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), represents a significant advancement for the practice of business service management (BSM). During this Webinar, EMA senior analyst Paul Burns and ASG senior vice president of marketing and product management Brent Brightwell, will highlight ITIL v3 changes relevant to BSM, explore how BSM and CMDB technology can be used to help transition from ITIL v2 to ITIL v3, and review how ASG BSM products, including its metaCMDB, support the move to ITIL v3.

For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 18.

About Enterprise Management Associates

Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

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ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES OUTLINES STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL VIRTUALIZATION SECURITY

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:47:25 +0000

New research defines virtualization security and offers advice on how to simplify the process

BOULDER, Colo. Sept. 11, 2008 -Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today released new research and recommended practices for secure virtualization in its report, "Virtualization Security: The Early Stages of a New Battleground." EMA security and risk management analyst Mike Montecillo and research director Scott Crawford co-wrote the study to help provide a better understanding of the emerging virtualization security market while outlining best practices that IT security and operations teams can follow to successfully deploy practical and effective secure virtualization.

In this new report, EMA focuses primarily on how organizations can assure secure virtualization by identifying potential virtualization threats and vulnerabilities, and implementing techniques for securing the virtual environment.

"Virtualization is at the forefront of many security professionals' minds. Unfortunately, it has become very difficult to create a strategy that addresses the real security issues without being drawn in by the hype," said Montecillo. "This report is designed to help organizations understand the high-level issues and create a simplified approach to securing virtualization."

EMA defines virtualization security in terms of the relationship between virtualization and security, including:

Virtualized security - security solutions that are themselves virtualized, which can benefit virtualized as well as non-virtualized environments
Secure virtualization - safeguarding primary virtualization functionality against security risks, which may leverage both virtualized and non-virtualized security techniques

Security through virtualization - the security benefits of this emerging and disruptive technology

Given the relative youth of virtualized security, this report primarily targets the issues IT professionals face in securing virtualization and highlights its security benefits. Although the field of virtualization security is very young, there is already concern that organizations are at risk of overlooking the opportunity to create a safe environment in early stages of deployment. EMA has identified a number of potential threats against virtualization security that includes VM escapes, solution-specific threats and traditional attacks. These threats, combined with vulnerabilities in virtualization, are cause for alarm. In fact, Enterprise Management Associates' 2008 survey on virtualization found that although many organizations extend existing security-enhancing measures to the virtualized environment, the numbers decreased when the techniques became more specific to virtualization. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents extend configuration and change controls to the virtualized environment. The lowest numbers in the survey, however, related to questions regarding specific controls to the hypervisor (an emerging virtualization platform that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer at the same time). Only 26 percent of respondents said they have security controls in place to prevent hypervisor threats. In addition, only 17 percent leverage measures to detect these types of threats.

"EMA research repeatedly demonstrates that a disciplined approach to IT management reduces risk while yielding business benefits across multiple interests - and nowhere is this more true than in virtualization. Security is no exception, and may in fact be one of the greatest beneficiaries of a disciplined approach to virtual systems management," says Crawford.

Many of today's gaps and potential security risks of virtualization are related directly to the maturity and effectiveness of management. In earlier EMA studies focused on the effectiveness of IT risk control, research indicates that the highest performers have four cardinal virtues in common: 1) They define IT risk management and compliance objectives; 2) They actually implement them; 3) They investigate the environment to monitor and assess their effectiveness; and 4) They enforce adherence to requirements - through education and positive incentives, as well as through negative consequences for deviations.

EMA believes the key to any security strategy is to simplify the approach. This especially is true in the world of virtualization security where hype and publicity has created an awareness based on a warning, rather than an actual real-world threat. By becoming aware of the environments in which virtual technologies operate and understanding the technology itself, enterprises can develop and properly implement an effective virtualization security strategy and attain the full benefits of virtualization.

To purchase a copy of the report, "Virtualization Security: The Early Stages of a New Battleground," contact sales@enterprisemanagement.com or +1.303.543.9500.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

For more information on this topic or to arrange an interview with Mike Montecillo or Scott Crawford, please contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x17

About Enterprise Management Associates

Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

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Catapult Public Relations

ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES ANNOUNCES IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR OCTOBER

ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES OUTLINES STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL VIRTUALIZATION SECURITY