Centrify Suite 2010 Expands Ability to Ensure Higher Levels of Trust, Control and Compliance in the Data Center

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Centrify Corporation, the leading provider of security and compliance solutions to secure cross-platform data centers using Microsoft® Active Directory®, today expanded the Centrify Suite with a pair of first-to-market components that provide additional layers of security and compliance while extending IT operational efficiencies.

The addition of these two new solutions to the existing Centrify Suite – consisting of DirectControl, DirectAuthorize and DirectAudit – gives Centrify the deepest solution set for extending Active Directory across the industry's widest range of heterogeneous systems, hypervisors and applications. DirectSecure extends the Centrify Suite beyond its traditional capabilities – managing end-users' identity and access management privileges – into endpoint protection. DirectSecure securely authenticates computers and data center servers, protecting these "trusted" systems from "untrusted" computers and enabling end-to-end encryption of data in motion. DirectManage provides a scalable and extensible management platform that centralizes the discovery, management and user administration of non-Microsoft systems through integration into Active Directory-based tools and processes.

"The Centrify Suite has made a valuable contribution to our security at PR Newswire," said Craig Reading, technical architect at PR Newswire. "We look forward to the broader management and server security capabilities in the new version, which will provide us the ability to grant access, modify privileges and monitor activity for systems that are both on-premises and in the cloud."

Intentional exploitation of access and system connectivity continues to represent a significant source of data breaches. The Identity Theft Resource Center recently reported that for the first time more breaches are caused by malicious hacking or insider theft than by human error or accidental exposure. As a result, organizations are increasingly searching for an easy and centralized way to understand, monitor and control access to sensitive systems. Notably, they must extend the security of those systems without increasing complexity or impeding the ability to do business. The addition of DirectSecure and DirectManage to the Centrify Suite 2010 go to the heart of these issues.

"As threats to their critical systems continue to mount, customers have begun asking us to add additional policies and layers to tighten security around their most strategic and sensitive assets," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and business development for Centrify. "DirectSecure and DirectManage have been designed to greatly extend their policy and protection infrastructure over physical, virtual and cloud-based systems without blowing away their budgets or piling on complexity."

DirectSecure is a host-based software solution that dynamically isolates sensitive systems, or groups of systems, into trusted virtual networks to allow higher levels of protection for intellectual property and confidential information. As a result, untrusted systems have no visibility or access to trusted systems on the network, and tiers of trust levels can be formed. DirectSecure also provides the option for end-to-end encryption of data in motion.

For example, DirectSecure can completely isolate systems that process credit card or personal health information from other trusted systems within the same network. Not only does this provide an added level of protection, but also can significantly reduce the cost and complexity of a compliance audit by limiting its scope to just systems that, say, process credit card data, and not the entire network. For more information, see the related press release, "Centrify Delivers DirectSecure for Next-Generation Protection of Cross-Platform Systems."

DirectManage is an industry-first management platform that automates provisioning of administrator access and facilitates rapid migration of existing accounts and privileges. In a heterogeneous data center, DirectManage can discover systems and groups, implement trust relationships and policies – including the migration of existing relationships from UNIX and Linux accounts – and then centrally manage, monitor and audit all user access. DirectManage includes the new Zone Provisioning Agent, which leverages Active Directory group membership to automate the provisioning of user profiles into Centrify Zones. For more information, see the related press release, "Centrify Delivers DirectManage to Streamline the Discovery, Management, and User Administration for UNIX and Linux Systems and Users."

Centrify Suite 2010: Advancing Cross-Platform Identity and Access Management

In addition to the introduction of DirectSecure and DirectManage, enhancements to the Centrify Suite 2010 include:

• Additional operating system support, extending Centrify's industry-leading coverage for the widest range of heterogeneous systems, hypervisors and applications: more than 225 flavors of UNIX, Linux and Mac
• Numerous feature enhancements to DirectControl, DirectAuthorize and DirectAudit
• Feature enhancements to DirectControl for Mac OS X including support for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in both 32-bit and 64-bit mode and new group policy capabilities
• Updated version support and other enhancements to Centrify-enabled open source tools, including Centrify-enabled Samba and Centrify-enabled OpenSSH

Pricing and Availability

The Centrify Suite 2010 is generally available from Centrify and its worldwide partners immediately. The Centrify Suite is licensed on a per guest OS server basis, starting at $350 per server for Standard Edition. DirectSecure is included in the Platinum Edition and pricing starts at $1,150 per server. DirectManage is included with every Centrify Suite purchase and is available at no additional charge to new and existing customers.

About Centrify

Centrify enables organizations to reduce IT expenses, strengthen security and enhance compliance by centrally securing their cross-platform data centers through Active Directory-based identity and access management. By leveraging Active Directory, organizations have a cost-effective solution for authentication, access control, role-based privilege management, user-level auditing and server protection for heterogeneous systems, hypervisors and applications. Built on a common architecture, the seamlessly integrated Centrify Suite – DirectControl, DirectAuthorize, DirectAudit, DirectSecure and DirectManage – has been chosen by over 1,500 enterprise customers worldwide for its quick-to-deploy, easy-to-manage next-generation technology. For more information about Centrify and its solutions, call +1 (408) 542-7500 or visit http://www.centrify.com/.  

Centrify, DirectControl and DirectAudit are registered trademarks and DirectAuthorize, DirectSecure and DirectManage are trademarks of Centrify Corporation in the United States and other countries. Other names used in this document are trademarks of their respective companies. Other names used in this document are trademarks of their respective companies.  

SOURCE Centrify Corporation