High-profile breaches such as those at the US Postal Service, Target, and eBay continue to make the news. Breaches can cost companies tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, regulatory fines, and remedial actions, not to mention the impact on customer loyalty and trust.

The result is that information security has become a major concern for both the IT organization and the executive suite. In fact, IDC forecasts that by 2016, security will be 1 of the top 3 issues for chief executives of global enterprises.

One of the ways organizations address security is compliance with standards such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). However, IT infrastructure diversity and complexity can increase your risk of security failures and noncompliance, as well as dramatically increase the effort and costs to comply.

That’s because vulnerability management―a mandatory component of security and compliance efforts―becomes exceedingly difficult and time consuming when your datacenter is running many different operating systems, versions, and configurations.

With a standard operating environment, management and administration are greatly simplified, making it easier to keep the environment secure and compliant. Simplified patch management helps make sure that systems are kept up-to-date and vulnerabilities are remediated or mitigated in a timely fashion.