Every organization has a core set of mission-critical data that must be protected. Security lapses and failures are not simply disruptions—they can be catastrophic events, and the consequences can be felt across the entire organization. As a result, security administrators face serious challenges in protecting the company's sensitive data. IT staff are challenged to provide detailed audit and controls documentation at a time when they are already facing increasing demands on their time, due to events such as mergers, reorganizations, and other changes. Many organizations do not have enough experienced mainframe security administrators to meet these objectives, and expanding employee skillsets with low-level mainframe security technologies can be time-consuming. The IBM® Security zSecure suite consists of multiple components designed to help you administer your mainframe security server, monitor for threats, audit usage and configurations, and enforce policy compliance. Administration, provisioning, and management components can significantly reduce administration, contributing to improved productivity, faster response time, and reduced training time needed for new administrators. This IBM Redbooks® publication is a valuable resource for security officers, administrators, and architects who wish to better understand their mainframe security solutions.

Every organization has a core set of mission-critical data that must be protected. Security lapses and failures are not simply disruptions--they can be catastrophic events, and the consequences can be felt across the entire organization. As a result, security administrators face serious challenges in protecting the company's sensitive data. IT staff are challenged to provide detailed audit and controls documentation at a time when they are already facing increasing demands on their time, due to events such as mergers, reorganizations, and other changes. Many organizations do not have enough experienced mainframe security administrators to meet these objectives, and expanding employee skillsets with low-level mainframe security technologies can be time-consuming. The IBM® Security zSecure suite consists of multiple components designed to help you administer your mainframe security server, monitor for threats, audit usage and configurations, and enforce policy compliance. Administration, provisioning, and management components can significantly reduce administration, contributing to improved productivity, faster response time, and reduced training time needed for new administrators. This IBM Redbooks® publication is a valuable resource for security officers, administrators, and architects who wish to better understand their mainframe security solutions.

Discussions about server sprawl, rising software costs, going green, or moving data centers to reduce the cost of business are held in many meetings or conference calls in many organizations throughout the world. And many organizations are starting to turn toward System zTM and z/VM® after such discussions. The virtual machine operating system has over 40 years of experience as a hosting platform for servers, from the days of VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA® and especially now with z/VM. With the consolidation of servers and conservative estimates that approximately seventy percent of all critical corporate data reside on System z, we find ourselves needing a highly secure environment for the support of this infrastructure. This document was written to assist z/VM support and security personnel in providing the enterprise with a safe, secure and manageable environment. This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides an overview of security and integrity provided by z/VM and the processes for the implementation and configuration of z/VM Security Server, z/VM LDAP Server, IBM Tivoli® Directory Server for z/OS®, and Linux® on System z with PAM for LDAP authentication. Sample scenarios with RACF® database sharing between z/VM and z/OS, or through Tivoli Directory Integrator to synchronize LDAP databases, are also discussed in this book. This book provides information about configuration and usage of Linux on System z with the System z Cryptographic features documenting their hardware and software configuration. The Consul zSecure Pro Suite is also part of this document: this product helps to control and audit security not only on one system, but can be used as a single point of enterprise wide security control. This document covers the installation and configuration of this product and detailed information is presented on how z/Consul can be used to collect and analyze z/VM security data and how it can be helpful in the administration of your audit data.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication documents the strength and value of the IBM security strategy with IBM zTM Systems hardware and software. In an age of increasing security consciousness and more and more dangerous advanced persistent threats, IBM z SystemsTM provides the capabilities to address the needs of today's business security challenges. This publication explores how z Systems hardware is designed to provide integrity, process isolation, and cryptographic capability to help address security requirements. We highlight the features of IBM z/OS® and other operating systems, which offer a variety of customizable security elements. We discuss z/OS and other operating systems and additional software that use the building blocks of z Systems hardware to provide solutions to business security needs. We also explore the perspective from the view of an enterprise security architect and how a modern mainframe has to fit into an overarching enterprise security architecture. This book is part of a three-volume series that focuses on guiding principles for optimized mainframe security configuration within a holistic enterprise security architecture. The series' intended audience includes enterprise security architects, planners, and managers who are interested in exploring how the security design and features of z Systems, the z/OS operating system, and associated software address current issues such as data encryption, authentication, authorization, network security, auditing, ease of security administration, and monitoring.

This book provides students of information systems with the background knowledge and skills necessary to begin using the basic security facilities of IBM System z. It enables a broad understanding of both the security principles and the hardware and software components needed to insure that the mainframe resources and environment are secure. It also explains how System z components interface with some non-System z components. A multi-user, multi-application, multi-task environment such as System z requires a different level of security than that typically encountered on a single-user platform. In addition, when a mainframe is connected in a network to other processors, a multi-layered approach to security is recommended. Students are assumed to have successfully completed introductory courses in computer system concepts. Although this course looks into all the operating systems on System z, the main focus is on IBM z/OS. Thus, it is strongly recommended that students have also completed an introductory course on z/OS. Others who will benefit from this course include experienced data processing professionals who have worked with non-mainframe-based platforms, as well as those who are familiar with some aspects of the mainframe environment or applications but want to learn more about the security and integrity facilities and advantages offered by the mainframe environment.