Did you know that you can extend performance tools' uses to include systems management? It may not seem intuitive, at first glance, to consider performance management tools as useful for security management tasks. In fact, many administrators' knowledge of performance management is limited to the built-in Windows^® Task Manager or the free Process Monitor tool from Microsoft^®. But these are not true performance management solutions.

The reality is that performance management solutions are software suites deeply integrated within an entire infrastructure. This tight integration enables rich data reporting from across a workgroup, a data center, or a worldwide enterprise. Most performance management solutions have reporting tools that can also give both instant summaries and detailed reports of what's happening on all systems.

Not surprisingly, when the solution is configured to retrieve security data as well as performance data, the solution's functionality is extended to become a great security dashboard and reporting tool.