Keeping track of Windows 2000 and Windows NT file systems can be time consuming and difficult, according to Rick Pleczko, vice-president of marketing and product management for Houston, Tex.-based Mission Critical Software.
With that in mind, Mission Critical has introduced the OnePoint File Administrator as a part of its OnePoint suite of products.
“What we’ve built is a tool that enables on-touch or fingertip control of the entire Windows NT and Windows 2000 file system and configuration security in large enterprises — a major administrative problem these guys have right now,” Pleczko said.
Administrators are able to get an overview of the network file system, file security administration capabilities, as well as reporting and data collection capabilities, according to the vendor.
The product has two benefits, Pleczko said.
“One is it allows you to get control, and if you like, take inventory of your file system,” he explained. “So with all of your files out there, you understand exactly what type of files you’ve got out there, how they are distributed.”
It also allows administrators to take stock of their inventory files, said Pleczko, who added that the key benefit is “a powerful tool for file security auditing. With the OnePoint File Administrator, you’re able to answer the question, ‘who has access to what files?’, and you’re also able to change file security permissions in bulk across hundreds or thousands or even millions of files with one key stroke.”
The benefit for administrators, according to Chris King, analyst with the Burlingame, Calif.-based Meta Group, is “being able to have some common policy around resource administration.”
King said the opportunity for File Administrator to find success in the market is definitely there.
“I think that there’s a market for it,” he said. “I think that as folks are trying to do security administration across hundreds of NT servers and NT resources, yeah, there’s a market for something like this.”
Customers have been asking for a product like this one according to Pleczko, who said all businesses would benefit from it.
“Any size business would benefit from it,” he said. But, he explained, it’s the larger-size businesses that will have larger problems.
“One would argue that the larger the organization, the more files you have, the more exposure you have in terms of file security and the more pain you have managing and administering those files,” Pleczko said.
King said he doesn’t think File Administrator will do as well as previous products put out by Mission Critical. Ultimately, he is waiting to see what the reaction to the product will be from customers, before making any serious assessments of the product’s performance.
“To put some perspective on it, I don’t think this is as big a product as their user-admin product in terms of market,” King said. “It looks well thought out, but until I really see it and talk to some users who have said ‘yes this works’ or ‘no this doesn’t, it’s hard for me to say. Mission Critical stuff has traditionally been well-sorted.”
File Administrator will function independently from the other products in its suite, and King said that customers who don’t have the other products will probably still be interested in the company’s new offering.
But he also said he thinks that Mission Critical will have some challenges to face as well.
“Because there’s no such thing as an NT group in most organizations, it gets harder to sell the full breadth of their solutions across everything,” King explained. “So that’s something that’s going to be a test for them, because they’re going to have to climb a little bit higher in the organization.”
And although he said he has been pleased with what he’s seen of the company and its offerings before, “they’re in a little bit of a precarious position in that they kind of have to play nice with Microsoft while making sure that they don’t lose their space.”
Available everywhere as of October, pricing for OnePoint File Administrator will be US$9 per user, according to Pleczko.
More information about the product can be found at the company’s Web site, www.missioncritical.com, or at 1-888-323-6768.
