Centrify Secures the Data Center With Broadest Range of Support for Virtual Computing Environments

Enhanced Centrify Suite enables comprehensive identity management of over a dozen Host VM technologies and over 190 operating systems and guest virtual machines

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 16 /PRNewswire/ — Centrify Corporation, the leading provider of Microsoft Active Directory-based, identity and access management and auditing solutions for non-Microsoft platforms, today announced extensive support for heterogeneous, virtualized data centers with the general availability of the Centrify Suite update 3. With this release, Centrify facilitates an organization’s ability to securely and efficiently transition from a traditional, physical infrastructure to a dynamic, virtualized computing environment. Centrify enables organizations to leverage their existing Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure for centralized identity management, access control, privilege management and auditing across the industry’s broadest range of platforms – with newly released support for over a dozen hypervisor platforms and over 190 UNIX and Linux operating systems running as guests on hypervisors or on physical servers.

As noted by analysts, server virtualization platforms are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, but also increasingly heterogeneous as organizations deploy bare-metal hypervisors from vendors such as VMware and Citrix while, in parallel, they leverage virtualization technology built into the latest UNIX, Linux and Windows operating systems. This growing ubiquity and the ability for business-critical guest systems to proliferate and seamlessly move and migrate across a datacenter can lead to a loss of control from a security and management perspective. But the need to secure these guest systems’ underlying hypervisors from insider and outsider threats cannot be ignored.

In addition, as organizations continue the migration from a physical to a virtualized server infrastructure, they find themselves managing a complex environment of heterogeneous operating systems and applications. IT managers need unified, global control over their evolving data center to meet security and compliance requirements – from management and segregation of duties to protection and auditing across any server instance.

“Virtualization software creates a new IT platform that needs to be secured. Security policy enforcement solutions are needed in virtualized computing environments to supplement what is available in physical computing environments and to address blind spots within the virtual server that external physical security solutions can’t see,” said Neil MacDonald, vice president of research at Gartner(1). “Favor vendors that offer a physical and virtual security solution and that provide a single management console and consistent policy framework across both environments.”

The Centrify Suite with DirectControl 4.3 addresses the need to secure both physical and virtual environments by effectively turning a non-Microsoft system or hypervisor into an Active Directory client, enabling administrators to secure that system using the same authentication and Group Policy services currently deployed for their Windows systems, as well as adding granular access control through its patent-pending Zone technology.

The Centrify Suite has long supported VMware ESX and other virtual environments, and with this release has added support for eleven new virtualization platforms such as Sun Solaris xVM, IBM AIX WPAR and IBM z/Linux, and has added support for over 40 new guest operating system such as Fedora 10, Mandriva 2009, Ubuntu 8.10 and OpenSUSE 10 bringing the total to over 190 operating systems supported — both of which lead the industry in Active Directory cross-platform integration and interoperability. To learn more, join Centrify in a webinar, “Addressing the Unique IT security Risks posed by the Virtual data Center” on Tuesday, June 23 at 10am PDT

New Virtual Machine Host Support

The Centrify Suite with DirectControl 4.3 now supports the following virtualization technologies:

• VMware ESX, VMA and vStudio
• Citrix XenServer
• IBM AIX system and application Logical Partition (LPAR) and Workload Partition (WPAR)
• Sun Solaris 10 Sparse Zones (Containers) and Solaris xVM (Xen-based hypervisor)
• Hewlett Packard’s HP-UX Virtual Server Environment including Virtual Partitions (vPars) and hard partitions (nPars) as well as HP Virtual Machines
• IBM z/Linux running SUSE (see related press release, “Centrify Integrates Identity and Access Management for Linux on IBM System z and Active Directory“)
• Red Hat Virtualization built into Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Novell SUSE’s Xen-based Virtualization
• Non-Microsoft Guest OSes running on Microsoft Hyper-V

New guest operating system support includes:

• Fedora 10
• Mandriva 2009 One
• OpenSuSE 11.0 and 11.1
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3
• Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 PPC and zLinux
• Ubuntu Desktop and Server 8.10

About the Centrify Suite

The Centrify Suite is an integrated family of Active Directory-based auditing, access control and identity management solutions that secure cross-platform environments and strengthen regulatory compliance initiatives. Integrated with DirectControl in the Centrify Suite is Centrify DirectAuthorize, which enables role-based entitlements for fine-grained control of user access and privileges on UNIX and Linux systems, and Centrify DirectAudit, which delivers auditing, logging and real-time monitoring of user activity on non-Microsoft systems. Both DirectAuthorize and DirectAudit have also been enhanced to support a wide range of virtualization technology platforms, meaning both the underlying hypervisor and operating system guests can be better secured against both inside and outside threats and leverage a common directory infrastructure.

Pricing and Availability

The Centrify Suite 2008 Update 3 is licensed on a per server basis, starting at $350 per server. Support for the newly announced platforms is available now from Centrify and its authorized resellers. For details on supported environments visit: http://www.centrify.com/products/all-supported-platforms.asp

About Centrify

Centrify’s auditing, access control and identity management solutions centrally secure cross-platform systems, web applications, databases and enterprise applications using Microsoft Active Directory. More than 1000 enterprise customers, including 38% of the Fortune 50, have selected Centrify for its quick-to-deploy, easy-to-manage Active Directory-based cross-platform interoperability solutions. The Centrify Suite comprises DirectControl, DirectAuthorize and DirectAudit, and helps organizations improve IT efficiency, better comply with regulatory requirements, and move toward a more secure, connected infrastructure for their cross-platform computing environment. For more information about Centrify and its solutions, call +1 408 542-7500 or visit http://www.centrify.com

Centrify and DirectControl are registered trademarks and DirectAudit and DirectAuthorize are trademarks of Centrify Corporation. Other names used in this document are trademarks of their respective companies.

    (1) Gartner Report "Tactical Guidelines for Evaluating
        Virtualization Security Solutions," January 16, 2009, Gartner Report
        ID# G00163703).

SOURCE Centrify