OEM Opportunities

Centrify has enabled manufacturers of storage systems, network devices and other IT infrastructure components to "Active Directory enable" their solutions to strengthen security and enhance manageability for their customers. By licensing tested, proven technology from Centrify, these companies have been able to focus development efforts around their core competencies and, in so doing, they have accelerated their time to market and reduced engineering and QA costs and complexity.

What Centrify Can Do for You

In most enterprises, Microsoft's Active Directory is now the de facto standard for providing authentication, authorization, account information, computer policy and infrastructure management for Windows systems and applications. Increasingly, storage systems, network devices, and other IT infrastructure hardware and software must be able to interoperate with Microsoft Active Directory. For example, storage systems must enforce access controls using authorization information associated with user and group permissions stored in Active Directory. Or, network devices must be able to authenticate service requests that are secured using Active Directory-held administrative accounts.

Example Functionality

Here is an example of the types of Active Directory-enabled services that Centrify can provide:

• Authenticate users via Kerberos, NTLM and MS-CHAP
• Query Active Directory's LDAP database for information such as a user's email address, manager, OU, etc.
• Find out what groups a user belongs to
• Use Group Policy, including reading existing policy sets and using Group Policy to configure your own components
• Read and write files using secure SMB
• Create GSS-secured communication pipes

OEM API Supplemented by Custom Development via Pluggable Architecture

Centrify's OEM API provides the most commonly needed Active Directory services. However, we also recognize that many solutions will need to be tailored to an individual company's needs. Our pluggable architecture was designed to deliver Active Directory integration components that feature streamlined installation and configuration, and the smallest possible footprint. We will work closely with you to provide discrete Active Directory solutions customized to your requirements.

3-Part Webinar Series What Gartner Says About Using Active Directory for Centralized Authentication, Auditing and SSO

Unified Identity Management - Research computing environments are often managed as independent silos, kept far apart from organizational and enterprise systems. Expect IT efficiency efforts and government reporting requirements to push for unified access control, single sign-on and identity management systems that span Windows, Mac and Unix systems. Companies with identity management systems built on Microsoft's Active Directory will want to take a serious look at software products from Centrify

Bio-ITWorld.com
January 2007