The Certification Authority and security company created the new guidance for completion of the PCI Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), as a critical element of the compliance process. The Painless PCI program was specially developed for Level 3 and 4 merchants who conduct up to a million annual transactions. With this offer, eMerchants can achieve compliance with a personalized guide that will assist them throughout the often challenging PCI questionnaire and Data Security Standard.

The needs of smaller merchants are often overlooked when it comes to risk management and compliance solutions, even though they comprise over 90% of all merchants (Source: Greensheet). PCI compliance solutions are typically designed for the larger enterprise with the expectation that they will need to be 'sized down' for the smaller merchant. This initiative reverses the business model with a specially designed tool to meet the needs of this large group of merchants.

The integrated program uniquely delivers PCI compliance expertise on security solutions and processes needed to efficiently achieve compliance. The free program is delivered within an intelligent web-based wizard that creates and manages a remediation plan based on each merchant's individual circumstance.

Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and Chief Security Architect for Comodo noted, ''Issues around compliancy and risk mitigation are rapidly becoming more critical for e-businesses to address. Comodo has changed the model of how merchants can be supported in their critical compliancy and risk mitigation needs with our Painless PCI program. As a Certification Authority, it is important we actively support improving the level of compliance and security within the ebusiness community. The PCI Program makes PCI compliancy achievable and painless for virtually any online business.''

Elements of the program include:

• HackerGuardian PCI Compliance Wizard
  This innovative, intuitive, free, web-based application guides merchants through the PCI compliance process. The wizard helps eMerchants determine if they are PCI compliant and, if not, how to best achieve PCI compliance. The wizard provides:
  • Guidance through the Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) - Provides step-by-step explanation of questions and terms as the eMerchant answers the SAQ
  • A custom company Remediation Plan that contains:
    • A list of remedial actions required for full PCI Compliance
    • A remediation planning tool enabling task prioritization and project management
    • Links to recommended products, information and services that will help a merchant resolve compliance issues
    • A ready-to-submit PCI DSS Self Assessment Questionnaire
• PCI approved Comodo Security Solutions
  Should a merchant require PCI compliant security solutions such as vulnerability scanning and SSL security, the Painless PCI Program identifies which solutions are required and can provide these solutions from Comodo, an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV).

Registration has been designed to be easy and simple for participants:

1. Affiliates register on Planet Alpha's affiliate program page located at www.theplanet.com/affiliates.

2. Affiliates gain access to a full-featured management portal, which provides marketing materials, product information and a personalized HTML code to embed on their site.

3. Partners place links on their sites using the marketing materials.

4. Visitors to the affiliate's Web site click on The Planet links, and a cookie is implanted to designate the source. Concurrently, The Planet Web site integrates with the affiliate vendor to make sales.

5. Affiliates can log into the affiliate portal to monitor sales conversions.

6. Share-A-Sale issues payments to affiliate partners.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide the following:

• High level of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

Rob Frase, Senior Director, Information Technology and Data Center Services at MedeFinance healthcare analytics company remarked, ''3PAR Utility Storage is easy to manage, letting us focus on our business, not our storage. The new InForm Management Console is designed to make managing 3PAR InServs even easier.''

The new InForm Management Console includes the following features:

• Quick Filter - Easy filtering of tabular data for quick access to vital system information
• Wizards - New wizards require fewer mouse clicks to configure volumes
• 3PAR Virtual Domains Management - Complete view of all Virtual Domains including user management and details on all connected systems for consolidated control of Virtual Domains
• Charting Functions - Enhanced charting functions enabling specified objects to be graphed separately or in aggregate (where data from multiple systems can be graphed on the same chart) and offering preservation of chart settings for later use
• Data Export - Flexible export of InForm Management Console data in CSV or HTML file formats

• Volume Provisioning - In addition to discovering and monitoring storage volumes, enables users to actively create and provision 3PAR base volumes using SMI-S clients.
• Performance Statistics - Gives users the ability to retrieve performance statistics for ports, virtual capacity, and physical capacity.
• LUN Masking and Mapping - Enables users to see which storage volumes are visible to which hosts, whether connected via Fibre Channel or iSCSI.

3PAR's SMI-S provider has been designed to SNIA specifications to integrate with management applications from leading SMI-S client vendors including HP, Onaro and Symantec, and Tek-Tools Software.

Ryan Bonnett, IT Administrator for The Generations Network, parent company of leading online family history resource Ancestry.com added, ''3PAR's SMI-S integration with Tek-Tools and latest enhancements provide us with simple, more comprehensive storage management capabilities. The visibility provided by Tek-Tools Profiler into our 3PAR InServ Storage Servers offers valuable information to optimize our storage investment without sacrificing performance.''

David Scott, President and CEO for 3PAR commented, ''A number of our customers have already reported 10x administrative efficiency gains from 3PAR Utility Storage - a smart, thin, and ready tiered-storage array for resilient utility computing. 3PAR's InForm Management Console and our new enhancements to SMI-S are designed to further enhance our customers' visibility, control, and administrative efficiency in managing their 3PAR InServs.''