Centrify Express Provides Free and Easy On-Ramp to Active Directory-Based Authentication for Linux and Mac OS X

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Centrify Corporation, the leader in securing and auditing access to cross-platform systems and applications through Active Directory, today announced availability of Centrify Express, a new set of free software applications and tools, content resources and community forums designed to help organizations improve security and compliance of data center and desktop systems. A subset of the company's award-winning Centrify Suite of identity and access management solutions (IAM), Centrify Express is ideal for organizations interested in establishing a single sign-on experience for Linux and Mac users based on their existing Active Directory credentials. To download the free software, visit http://www.centrify.com/express.

"We are very proud of the large and growing ecosystem of partners such as Centrify who have chosen interoperability with Canonical for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS," says Matt Asay, COO, Canonical. "With the free Centrify Express offering, organizations of all shapes and sizes can quickly and easily integrate desktops and servers running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with Active Directory."

Gartner's 2010 CIO Survey places identity management as the number one IT security priority through 2011. The potential misuse of shared credentials by insiders is leading IT managers to focus on ensuring authentication to key internal and cloud-based systems to eliminate unauthorized access. In a climate where budgets are still tight amid multiple competing priorities, Centrify Express represents a cost-effective solution for ensuring authorized access by requiring users to log in as themselves rather than using shared accounts or account credentials that are difficult to map back to a specific individual. And Centrify Express delivers this capability by letting organizations both big and small leverage an existing infrastructure they have already deployed—Microsoft Active Directory—to secure their heterogeneous computing environment.

Centrify Express comprises:

• DirectControl Express: Enables Linux and Mac OS X servers and workstations to participate in a Windows Active Directory domain and gives users Active Directory-based single sign-on.
• DirectManage Express: Automates deployment and management activities by providing a central solution to discover non-Windows systems on a network; assess and validate the system's ability to join Active Directory; download the right packages for systems; and automatically deploy software to join systems to Active Directory–all from one easy-to-use graphical management tool.
• Centrify-Enabled Open Source Tools and Utilities: Allows for cross-platform connectivity and file sharing with Centrify-enabled versions of OpenSSH, PuTTY and Samba that have been enhanced and tested to seamlessly work with Active Directory and support Kerberos while delivered as easy-to-install pre-compiled packages.
• Centrify Express Community: A full open community, moderated by Centrify technical experts and customers, to support learning, collaboration and best-practice development in support of single sign-on and related security and compliance initiatives, featuring forums, how-to videos, best-practice guides and more.

Centrify Express is a subset of the capabilities provided by the Centrify Suite that layers on additional capabilities such as group policy, role-based access control as an industrial strength replacement of sudo, privileged identity management, user-level auditing, server isolation and encryption of data-in-motion. Centrify Express customers can simply use Express for free or subsequently upgrade some or all of their non-Microsoft systems to various editions of the Centrify Suite that meet their needs.

"Cross-platform identity and access management solutions have traditionally been too costly and complex for smaller to medium sized businesses (SMBs), but they often have some of the same security and compliance requirements such as PCI as larger organizations," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing at Centrify. "Centrify's approach of leveraging Active Directory combined with our free Express offering will now allow those organizations to easily improve security and compliance for their systems and layer on additional capabilities as their business evolves."

Resources to Ensure Your Success

The Centrify Express program offers a comprehensive set of resources and support to ensure a successful experience, including:

Community site and forums - Want to talk with other Express users or learn more about how Centrify Express integrates with your environment? Share your experience with others and suggest new features and uses. Visit http://community.centrify.com/

Video Tutorials and Demos - Watch video tutorials of the Express program and products. Visit http://www.centrify.com/express/free-active-directory-tools-for-linux-mac.asp#view-demo

Learn More - Determine if Express is right for your organization, view frequently asked questions, compare the free Express offering to licensed products and much more. Visit http://www.centrify.com/express/centrify-express-overview.asp

Pricing and Availability

Centrify DirectControl Express, DirectManage Express and Centrify-Enabled Open Source Tools and Utilities are available for immediate download by visiting www.centrify.com/express. All products are free of charge and include a non-expiring license.

About Centrify

Centrify is the leader in securing and auditing access to cross-platform systems and applications through Active Directory. From the data center and into the cloud, Centrify's identity consolidation and privilege management solutions are used by over 2500 organizations to reduce IT expenses, strengthen security and meet compliance requirements. Built on a common architecture, the Centrify Suite delivers secure authentication, role-based access control, privileged identity management, user-level auditing, server isolation and encryption of data-in-motion for the industry's broadest set of systems, hypervisors and applications. For more information about Centrify and its solutions, call +1 (408) 542-7500 or visit www.centrify.com.

Centrify, DirectControl and DirectAudit are registered trademarks and DirectAuthorize, DirectSecure, DirectControl Express and DirectManage are trademarks of Centrify Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other product and company names used in this document may be trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Centrify Corporation