In information systems being constantly developed and enlarged, inventory and change management without automation tools are almost unsolvable problems. On the other hand, availability of actual data on the information system is necessary to ensure effective operating of the IS management system.

The high-performance network scanner and unique fingerprinting methods that are implemented in MaxPatrol and are based on penetration testing and system checks allow gathering the information about the existing elements of the IT-infrastructure and watch the current changes efficiently. Inventory functions based on system checks minimize the network traffic and system stress, which allows one to perform scanning more often and obtain more extended and relevant data such as hardware and system configuration. Using the modules of analysis of DBMSs and applications in the course of inventory allows to check such parameters as accounts, user groups, and database objects. The inventory results can be further used in change monitoring and generation of reports describing the security state of the system or its separate nodes.

Change management represents one of the basic aspects of modern approaches to information infrastructure management such as ITIL and COBIT. To evaluate the effectiveness of undertaken efforts and IT and IS development planning, it is necessary not only to know the current system state, but also to be able to compare it, for example, with last-week or last-month states.

The mechanisms of report generation implemented in MaxPatrol allow monitoring the dynamics of the security state of the entire system, its subsystems and nodes. Here are some examples of the events controlled by the described mechanism: appearance of new network nodes and services, reinstallation of operating system, changes of network router configuration, and reconfiguration of hardware.

However, the MaxPatrol capabilities consist not only in tracking the inventory information. It is possible to watch the parameters of system security that represent the results of security evaluation and security policy control.

Thus, with MaxPatrol you can control and effectively respond to the system modifications that can break the security requirements and cause any incident.