Centrify Corporation, a provider of security and compliance solutions, announced availability of its Centrify Suite 2012 security and compliance solution for the latest Linux operating systems running on IBM z Series. While Active Directory provides a central repository for Windows accounts, authentication and user entitlements for other systems often reside in disparate identity silos or are managed locally system by system. Centralizing or bridging the management of these accounts with Active Directory is the preferred method by more organizations to meet compliance requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, FISMA and PCI which state that organizations must limit access to business-critical systems to only named users whose job role requires it, and must audit and report on activity. Centrify-supported platforms cover mobile devices, such as iPads and Android devices, to mainframes running Red Hat or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z, and hundreds of flavors of desktop and server operating systems in between.
“Today, Centrify supports more than 375 versions of UNIX and Linux operating systems,” Tom Kemp, CEO and co-founder and CEO of Centrify, tells 5 Minute Briefing. “Linux on the IBM Systems z runs on a virtual host via a logical partition or z/VM host. Centrify Suite for zLinux runs on the Linux guests in this virtual environment. The underlying Integrated Facility for Linux supports a number of Linux offerings, including SUSE and Red Hat. Centrify Suite fully supports these Linux operating systems and has successfully passed the IBM validation program, earning the IBM brand 'Ready for Systems with Linux' for System z servers.”
The Centrify Suite is designed to enable organizations centrally control, secure and audit access to cross-platform systems, mobile devices and applications by leveraging Microsoft Active Directory. The Centrify Suite — consisting of DirectControl, DirectAuthorize, DirectAudit, DirectSecure and DirectManage — delivers secure authentication and single sign-on, role-based access control, mobile security management, privileged identity management, user-level auditing for Windows and UNIX systems, server isolation, and encryption of data-in-motion for heterogeneous systems, mobile devices and applications.
“Organizations can now use an existing robust and scalable infrastructure – Active Directory – to centralize access control, privilege management and security policy,” Kemp says. “IBM zLinux customers can now use Centrify Suite and Active Directory as a cost-effective and proven infrastructure to secure their cloud initiatives. They can also extend that security and management to iOS and Android devices using Centrify Cloud Services and Centrify DirectControl for Mobile.”
For more information, visit the Centrify website at www.centrify.com.