ACF2 vs CA VM:Secure comparison

CA ACF2™ for z/OS provides innovative, comprehensive security for your business transaction environments—including Linux, UNIX and z/OS on System z—helping you realize the reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness of the mainframe. CA ACF2 provides an Advanced Authentication Mainframe feature, system entry validation, resource control, auditability, accountability, and administrative control. In conjunction with distributed security solutions from CA Technologies, CA ACF2 provides mobile-to-mainframe enterprise class security and compliance management.

ACF2 Features

ACF2 offers some of the following features:

• Authentication: ACF2 is used for authenticating users and granting them access to profiles and various resources on the mainframe.

• Access Control: The solution provides resource control, allowing administrators to control who can access specific mainframe resources.

• Logging and Monitoring: Organizations can easily track and monitor activities on the mainframe. This feature enables the creation of audit trails for follow-up and helps with security analysis.

• Metrics and Reporting: ACF2 allows the configuration of tools to produce different types of metrics and reports. These can then be used by senior management for making informed security decisions.

• Comprehensive Security: The solution provides comprehensive security for mainframe environments, ensuring the protection of valuable data assets. It offers advanced authentication, system entry validation, and administrative control.

• Streamlined Administration: It simplifies the administration of mainframe security by providing streamlined management capabilities. ACF2 also enables administrators to monitor and adjust security policies and accommodate various organizational structures.

• Scalability: ACF2 offers reliable and scalable security, allowing businesses to expand their mainframe environments while maintaining a high level of protection.

• Compliance Management: Organizations can meet compliance requirements by providing auditability, accountability, and comprehensive security controls.

• Integration: ACF2 can integrate with distributed security solutions from CA Technologies, providing enterprise-class security and compliance management for mobile-to-mainframe environments.

• Flexibility: ACF2 allows flexibility in adapting security policies to accommodate different organizational structures and requirements.

ACF2 Benefits

Some of the benefits that ACF2 provides are:

• Enhanced security and resilience

• Streamlined administration

• Reliable and scalable security

• Comprehensive audit capabilities

• Cost-effectiveness

• Integration with other security solutions

• Simplified identity and access management

• Compliance management

• Efficient monitoring and reporting

Reviews from Real Users

According to an IT Examiner at a financial services firm with 10,000+ employees, "ACF2 is extremely beneficial for the mainframe environment, and it is at the forefront for security and resilience."

CA VM:Secure for z/VM (CA VM:Secure) is a comprehensive security and directory management system for z/VM.

It’s designed to help you minimize risk by establishing rigid safeguards and controlling access to z/VM and Linux on System z guest resources.

CA VM:Secure helps prevent inadvertent security exposures by automatically maintaining synchronization between the z/VM user directory and your security rules. It helps make it easier to enforce IT-wide security practices automatically, identify security offenders and produce complete security reports and audit listings.

CA VM:Secure help you optimize your z/VM environment by providing:

• Control over access to all system resources
• Delegation of disk space management and automated direct access storage device (DASD) relocation

CA VM:Secure Features

CA VM:Secure offers the following features:

• Comprehensive Security Management: CA VM:Secure provides a comprehensive suite of security management features to protect IBM z/OS mainframe systems, addressing various aspects of security such as access control, authentication, encryption, and threat detection.

• Granular Access Control: The solution allows administrators to define fine-grained access controls based on user roles and privileges, ensuring that only authorized users have access to specific resources and operations.

• Strong User Authentication: CA VM:Secure supports multiple authentication methods, including password-based authentication, digital certificates, and multi-factor authentication, providing flexibility in choosing the appropriate level of user authentication.

• Audit and Compliance Support: The solution offers robust auditing capabilities, enabling organizations to monitor user activity, track system events, and generate detailed audit reports. This helps in meeting regulatory compliance requirements and facilitates internal auditing.

• Data Protection: Users are offered encryption mechanisms to protect sensitive data at rest and during transmission, safeguarding valuable information from unauthorized access and ensuring data confidentiality and integrity.

• Centralized Security Administration: The solution provides a centralized interface for managing security policies, user accounts, and system configurations. This streamlines administrative tasks, simplifies security management, and improves overall efficiency.

• Intrusion Detection and Prevention: It includes built-in mechanisms for detecting and preventing security threats and unauthorized access attempts. This proactive defense helps in safeguarding the mainframe environment from potential attacks.

• User Provisioning and De-Provisioning Automation: The solution offers automated workflows for user provisioning and de-provisioning, reducing manual effort and ensuring timely and accurate management of user accounts.

• Secure File Transfer: CA VM:Secure supports secure file transfer capabilities between z/OS systems and other platforms, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of data during transmission.

• Integration with Identity and Access Management (IAM) Solutions: Users can benefit from its integration capabilities with external IAM solutions, allowing them to leverage existing identity management systems and establish centralized control over user identities and access.

• Customizable Reporting: CA VM:Secure offers customizable reports and dashboards, enabling organizations to generate tailored reports that provide insights into security events, user activity, and compliance status.