Automating IT Configuration Controls with Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Change Console

Automating IT Configuration Controls with Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Change Console An Oracle Technical White Paper October 2008

Automating IT Configuration Controls with Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Change Console
INTRODUCTION Today Oracle offers Oracle Enterprise Manager a complete application management solution. Oracle Enterprise Manager allows you to manage your applications top-down from a business perspective. This allows you to identify business exceptions rapidly, pinpoint root cause issues using drilldowns in the underlying technologies, infrastructure, and remediate the issues automatically before they become emergencies. A key component of Oracle Enterprise Manager is the Configuration Management Pack. The Configuration Management Pack Security is only as strong as the weakest link. Methods that applications use to provides discovery, asset tracking, analytics, change detection and compliance interact with the database are often an assessments and reporting. Included with the Configuration Management Pack is overlooked link that's improperly secured. the Configuration Change Console. Configuration Change Console provides breakthrough capabilities to automate real-time IT configuration change management through comprehensive, continuous detection, validation and reporting of authorized and unauthorized configuration change. This White Paper discusses the unique capabilities of the Configuration Change Console, helping you define, track and enforce IT policies; automate IT compliance processes; and reduce the effort and cost of managing business applications.
POLICY-BASED IT MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE Although many IT organizations have developed and documented operational policies, many are still finding these inadequate to meet the constant pressure for managing their Configuration Compliance. One of the main issues customers are experiencing is the inability to develop policies into processes and procedure that produce real-time measurable metrics. This can result in insufficient internal controls to manage today's complexity and changes. This issue is even more magnified with the entry of regulatory requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, where public companies are required to comply. One of the key strategies used by IT organizations to meet these internal controls is to adopt standards such as PCI, ITIL, ISO 17799, and ISO 20000 which are recognized as industry best practices.
White Paper Title Page 2 These guidelines not only help IT organizations meet their regulatory requirements but IT Governance Institute has also found that adopting these best practices has also resulted in lowering IT operational cost and improved alignment with business needs1. As a result, organizations today are finding it necessary to develop best practices and tools that map their IT strategies, technologies and management practices to their business objectives. To ensure these best practices comply with regulatory, security and service quality requirements, metrics need to be in place that determines if the IT goals are being met. To successfully provide this, it is highly recommended to have an automation process that links company policies to best practices and implement a real-time Configuration Change Console helps automated method for measuring compliance2 organizations ensure regulatory compliance as well as implement internally CONFIGURATION CHANGE CONSOLE mandated controls. Configuration Change Console delivers these benefits by The Configuration Change Console is designed to help organizations by providing providing a library of policies coupled with an out-of-the-box IT framework that connects IT policies and controls directly to real-time change detection and change the data collection. This includes tracking and recording both manual and reconciliation. automated actions and events against configuration items, applications and IT components as part of the normal daily operations. Configuration Change Console also provides a centralized repository to manage IT policies and controls where it maps the detected actions and events against it.
The Configuration Change Console is designed to provide improved reliability, s... [download for more]