Staples boosts IT change compliance

Staples has taken on new software to assist it in implementing change controls for achieving new and evolving compliance requirements, including Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS).

The world's largest office product company will use Oracle's Enterprise Manager Configuration Management Pack, with its Configuration Change Console, to automatically monitor changes across a range of platforms and controls within its IT infrastructure and correlate those changes with its existing change management system (CMS).

The pack is designed to manage IT configurations through real-time change detection as well as validation and reporting of authorised and unauthorised configuration changes across Oracle and non-Oracle environments.

The console will let Staples to monitor infrastructure changes, and compare them to approved CMS change requests, as well as trigger notifications and escalations regarding unauthorised activity, as mandated by compliance regulations.

This "change audit" will provide Staples with greater visibility of IT infrastructure changes through a closed-loop process, while helping to reduce IT staff workload.

Kevin Milliken, Staples IT vice president, said: "Oracle Enterprise Manager will help Staples to even more efficiently address governance and regulatory requirements. Specifically, the Configuration Change Console's real-time change detection and reporting capabilities will simplify and automate processes, enabling us to further reduce costs and risk and improve overall efficiencies."

Furthering the retailer's compliance benefits, Configuration Change Console will help Staples build its ability to validate and enforce change policies, simplify troubleshooting and decrease downtime, so reducing IT risk and enhancing its IT service management.