PSS Systems Inc. this week rolled out AtlasIPM (Information Policy Management), a suite of products for creating and enforcing information policies across the enterprise.

AtlasIPM consists of the Policy Atlas, a central policy repository for defining policies; and Policy Point, an agent that synchronizes with Policy Atlas to apply and enforce policies. Working together, the products centrally manage and enforce enterprise policies for retention, preservation, and disposal of information stored on PCs, file servers, and in existing data repositories, according to PSS officials.

The product suite lets companies take a policy driven approach to retaining information and responding when there is a regulatory inquiry or litigation, according to Deidre Paknad, president and CEO of PSS Systems.

AtlasIPM "is a map [that provides] data about where the data is kept. It is an overlay across various systems that house and archive data," Paknad said.

The enforcement piece sits on laptops and, looking at data, maps a person with categories that apply to that person, Paknad said.

"We decoupled the notion of policy and retention schedules from the repository of information. Assuming there are many silos of information across the enterprise, [organizations] need a map across all of those things," Paknad said.

One of the primary uses of AtlasIPM is to help heavily regulated companies, particularly in the financial services and oil and gas industries, respond in the event of litigation.

"When faced with litigation, compliance and legal executives in real time need to know immediately and authentically [what] may be related to the information at hand, who the administrators over that system are, and be able to demonstrate they"ve done the right thing along the way," Paknad said.

AtlasIPM automatically tags information at the point of creation, and provides a structured framework for automating many of the retention and enforcement steps along the way.

Although enterprises may be deploying compliance features and toolsets within specific applications, such as document management or ERP, compliance officers need a map at the highest level that gives them visibility across multiple systems.

"There is a need for transparency across systems, people, and information. In a typical Fortune 500 company there are a dozen different document management products installed, each focused on specific processes and types of information," Paknad said.

Compliance needs are "best addressed by a repository of policies rather than a content management repository," Paknad said.