Overview

As discussed in the previous chapters, many of the current IM systems have inadequate security and can expose your enterprise to serious breaches. Because the adoption of IM in the enterprise accelerated through public IM networks such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!, IM usage has grown under the radar, unmonitored and uncontrolled. As an enterprise-class solution, however, IM must be managed and controlled as a mission-critical service, in much the same way as telecom, e-mail, and Web access. In spite of this, IM systems are rapidly working their way into corporations because of their efficiency and convenience and are now an enterprise-wide business requirement.

IT organizations are now challenged to balance IM's inherent productivity enhancements with secure management, which ensures alignment with company policy for security, corporate accountability, and regulatory compliance. Deploying an enterprise-wide IM solution to address the inherent security and legal risks associated with this form of communication is a significant challenge. The key challenge in regard to IM security is how to balance your organization's short-term needs to get IM under control with longer-term objectives of building a scalable, reliable, enterprise-class IM infrastructure that will enable you to embrace and leverage IM throughout your business (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1: Balancing business needs with security risk management.

Many IT organizations have deployed IM management systems, such as IMlogic IM Manager, to manage, control, and secure IM usage. Leveraging integration with existing best-of-breed offerings from security, management, and compliance archiving vendors, IMlogic IM Manager enables...