Infrastructure software developer Business Layers Inc. Wednesday released security enhancements to its flagship product eProvision Day One, created to allow companies to better organize and allocate resources within their computer systems.

The first upgrade of the eProvision Day One is a password management option that allows clients to set their own standards for password administration, renewal and termination, according to David Lavenda, the company's vice president of product strategy. The option could be especially useful to companies with high rates of turnover to remove from the system passwords and access rights of workers who leave their jobs, as well as helping speed productivity of new employees who will begin their jobs with the data access they need.

The other addition is the debut of eProvision Studio, a test environment so customers can make sure that their applications and systems will interoperate with eProvision Day One before they put it fully in place. The test environment allows clients to make certain their systems are compatible with eProvision Day One through a download of a product simulation, Lavenda said.

The new management option creates a system that builds onto itself by storing employee and IT information, diminishing the dependence on company help desks and the need to assign someone to process passwords.

"A lot of studies say that the main costs of help desks is resetting passwords," Lavenda said.

Users of the new technology can decide for themselves to what extent they want to eliminate the human element of password management, Lavenda said.

"It's new technology and (new clients) are a little bit wary. They want to have that control (over the new system) before they trust us to an automated system," he said.

Business Layers, which is based in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, has approximately 25 clients, including Chevron Corp. and ePresence Inc., using the eProvision Day One software. But according to one analyst, the market for this type of application could grow.

Larger companies in particular could benefit from password management, said Christian Christiansen, program vice president for Internet infrastructure and security software at market researcher International Data Corp. The password management option also could benefit businesses with high turnover rates worried about the time it takes new employees to acclimate themselves to their new duties and gain access to different parts of a company's system, he said.

"You don't want to wait a month for them to be productive," he said of new employees.

The way the technology allows users of the software to be more self sufficient in gaining access to parts of a company's infrastructure is also impressive, Christiansen said. The technology allows managers to set up policies for access and passwords and then the users, which could include customers accessing password-protected Web sites, can get at the data they need without going through a system manager or several managers.

"Your IT staff doesn't have to manage every step of the way," he said.