Astaro Announces New Central Management Application for Network Assurance Appliances

Multiple Astaro Security Gateways can now be managed easily from a central system.

London and Karlsruhe (Germany) – 31st May 2006 - Astaro Corporation has today released Astaro™ Command Center (ACC) 1.0, a new application for centralised management of its network assurance security appliances. With this new application, network security administrators can now easily manage and control all their Astaro Security Gateway appliance installations worldwide.

Astaro Command Center allows for centralised and efficient management of many challenging and time-consuming tasks such as defining security policies, configuring applications, monitoring actual device states and maintaining device software and pattern updates.

Its intuitive web-based user interface provides a quick overview about the actual health of each device allowing administrators to quickly see which gateways require immediate action. A new user interface leverages state-of-the-art technologies including AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), which displays changes of any data immediately without additional delays resulting from screen refreshes. This results in significantly improved ease-of-use when managing multiple Astaro Security Gateways.

Astaro Command Center is a highly scalable turnkey solution, designed for management of hundreds or even thousands of devices and delivers all aspects of a fully-fledged central management solution.

Astaro Command Center V1.0 includes the following management applications:

Monitoring allows tracking of critical system parameters in real-time, including detected threats, license status, versions and resource usage. Various view options provide up-to-date information of all systems within a complete network infrastructure.
A World Map allows easy localisation of a specific device within a large global network. A zoom function allows navigation to specific regions of interest.
Inventory management provides comprehensive information about each device such as CPU, hard disk, memory, network interfaces, software version, among others. All Astaro Security Gateway devices are automatically integrated into device groups.
System maintenance for connected gateways offers centralised control of updates, system shutdowns and restarts for all selected devices.
Single-sign-on eases configuration management via centralised login to each device’s WebAdmin, the browser-based administrative interface for Astaro Security Gateways. Administrators therefore only have to login once to access any firewall within the network.
Role-based multi-administrative support allows the definition of administrators with different roles for using different management functions within Astaro Command Center concurrently.

Availability and Pricing
Astaro Command Center will be shipped as a software appliance (that is, as a bootable ISO image including the operating system and all applications) capable of being installed on a dedicated Intel-compatible PC.

Supported clients are all Astaro Security Gateways running:

ASG software V6, version 6.100 and higher, or
ASL V5, version 5.208 and higher

Astaro Command Center V1.0 is available immediately. This release is available to Astaro Security Gateway customers at no charge.

ACC V1.0 can be downloaded via the following link: ftp.astaro.de.

About Astaro - www.astaro.co.uk
Astaro develops a complete line of network security products including the Astaro Security Gateway software and Astaro Security Gateway line of security appliances. All Astaro products offer nine critical security applications in three categories - Web Security, Email Security and Network Security - fully integrated on a single management platform. The company is headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany and with facilities in Burlington, Mass.. Astaro's software has won numerous industry awards, and is protecting over 25,000 networks in 60 countries, including such organisations as EADS, Los Alamos National Labs and Stanford University. Astaro products are distributed by a worldwide network of 450 solutions partners who offer local support and services.

Press Contact
Dan Purvis, Goode International
+44 (0) 1491 873323, email: dan.purvis@goode.co.uk