Did Ya Hear?

The U.S. National Security Agency has awarded IBM a contract for its emerging High Assurance Platform (HAP) program. NSA and IBM will work together to design and develop the next-generation of high assurance workstations, servers and pervasive computing technology. The contract, awarded in the fourth quarter, has an estimated contract value of $9.4 million over 15 months. www.ibm.com

InterSystems Corp. has announced that implementation of its Ensemble integration platform within the high-profile Canadian Forces Health Information System (CFHIS) program is complete. Lockheed Martin Canada, the systems integrator for the CFHIS program which will support information sharing among 2,500 clinic-based Canadian Forces healthcare providers nationwide, implemented Ensemble-based interfaces for the initiative’s administrative and clinical applications using InterSystems Ensemble as the integration platform. www.intersystems.com

Symantec Corp. has agreed to sell its application performance management (APM) business to Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm specializing in spinouts, buyouts and recapitalizations of established technology businesses.  Upon closing, the APM business will operate as a new, stand-alone company called Precise Software Solutions. www.symantec.com

Oracle has announced the certification of Oracle Database Vault for use with the Oracle E-Business Suite. This enables customers to better protect sensitive application data from unauthorized access by any user, including privileged users, misusing their database privileges. Oracle Database Vault is an advanced database security product designed to enforce when, where, how, and by whom, data can be accessed. www.oracle.com

The Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), the world’s largest user knowledgebase for Oracle applications users, announced the 2008 list of associate member organizations that are participating in the OAUG Star Partner Program. Participants for 2008 include:  HP, Noetix, RWD Technologies and Solution Beacon LLC as Five-Star partners; Applimation, Aquire, Global Software, interRel Consulting, ReadSoft and UC4 Software, as Four-Star partners; and Cognizant, Core Services Corporation, The GL Company, i360technologies, Kaba Workforce Solutions, KPMG LLP, 02Works, Optimum Solutions, Solbourne and TUSC as Three-Star partners. In addition, 42 other organizations are participating in the program at the Two-Star Elite, Two-Star and Rising-Star levels. www.oaug.org

Luminex Software, a developer of mainframe connectivity and virtual tape products, and Platform Solutions, Inc. (PSI), developer of System64 Open Mainframe servers, announced that they have entered into a reseller agreement for PSI to sell Luminex's Channel Gateway to mainframe customers. The Channel Gateway delivers virtual tape emulation for the z/OS, z/VM and z/VSE mainframe operating environments. www.luminex.com and www.platform-solutions.com

BluePhoenix Solutions, a  leader in value-driven legacy modernization, announced that is has been selected to deliver a major project to modernize and re-host legacy mainframe applications and data stores. The contract is worth approximately $12 million to BluePhoenix and will be delivered over the next two years. In this project, BluePhoenix will utilize its highly automated modernization toolset to migrate legacy applications and databases to a Microsoft platform and SQL Server. www.bphx.com

CA announced CA Records Manager is the first records management application (RMA) to be certified by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) against version 3 of the U.S. DoD 5015.2 standard, which provides for greater data security and integrity. Due to its history of early and successful standards adoption, CA was among the first to be invited to certify against the new, more stringent standard. CA is also the first to achieve RMA-to-RMA transfer and interoperability certification, which sets standards for data import and export. www.ca.com

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and Phoenix Technologies Ltd. have announced a collaboration to provide mobile PC security on notebooks equipped with Hitachi hard drives. New laptops with Hitachi hard drives and Phoenix FailSafe theft-deterrence service will allow the PC owner to track, remotely disable and securely erase the disk drive. With this partnership, the FailSafe agent can be installed on an encrypted Hitachi hard drive. In the event of laptop theft, if a perpetrator removes the FailSafe agent, the authorized owner will be able to remotely re-install the FailSafe agent in the compromised system and take further steps to ensure integrity of the data on the laptop. www.hitachigst.com

NetApp has announced enhanced capabilities to its SnapManager for Oracle software that further simplify the backup and recovery process for Oracle Database 11g environments running on NetApp enterprise storage systems. SnapManager for Oracle is now tightly integrated with Oracle Database 11g, supporting Direct NFS and new functionality in Oracle Automatic Storage Management technology. www.netapp.com

Applimation, a provider of enterprise data management solutions for Oracle, PeopleSoft and Siebel environments, announced it has acquired Gamma Enterprise Technologies, creator of InfoShuttle, application data management software for companies running SAP applications. According to the company, the acquisition makes Applimation the largest independent global enterprise application data management company with more than 350 enterprise customers, offering the most comprehensive product portfolio. www.applimation.com and www.getgamma.com

Imperva, a leader in application data security and compliance, has announced that it has joined the RSA Secured Partner Program and that Imperva SecureSphere has achieved certified interoperability with RSA Access Manager software from RSA, the Security Division of EMC.  The partnership is intended to enable joint customers to deploy a layered Web security infrastructure that provides interoperable application protection with user access control. www.rsa.com and www.imperva.com

Tideway Systems has announced an enhanced Tideway Knowledge Update (TKU) service for Tideway Foundation 7.0, its application dependency mapping (ADM) solution. The community-directed offering catalogs software and hardware assets running in data centers and continually enhances Tideway’s Knowledge Network. The library will now be updated monthly to continuously increase the number of software products recognized across platforms. www.tideway.com

Colorado-based Datavail Corp. has acquired Stratavia’s managed services business. Datavail, a new venture led by Michael Jones, specializes in providing virtual database administration to small- and medium-sized businesses.  Datavail’s database management services include database monitoring, support and proactive administration, as well as architecture planning. The company currently serves more than 40 customers throughout the U.S. www.datavail.com

Tizor Systems, a provider of data center protection solutions, has announced a service intended to help enterprises locate sensitive data assets, identify risks associated with current operating practices, and develop plans to mitigate those risks. Regulations such as PCI, GLBA, SOX and the Personal Data Privacy Act of 2007 require companies to protect data determined to be private. The Tizor Discovery Service uses Mantra data activity monitoring technology to automate the process of discovering where data is located and how it is being used. www.tizor.com