* Omada, GridSure, Gatekeeper among those mentioned in run-up to Catalyst Conference
Last week’s newsletters looked at events surrounding the recent Catalyst Conference, and I want to get back to some of the conversations I had, and announcements that were made, at that event. But first there’s a number of other announcements and conversations to mention that occurred in the run-up to Catalyst. Unfortunately there’s not enough room for full discussion (or it would be winter before I could get on to anything else) but I will give you some links to find out more.
Lets plunge right in.
Denmark’s Omada was recently honored as Microsoft Security Solutions, Identity and Secure Access Partner of the Year. We congratulate them for this honor (for the second year in a row) and recommend you look at Omada Identity Manager.
A tip of the hat to Martin Kuppinger for bringing GridSure to my attention (see here) as both a stronger, yet simpler, authentication system. As Martin notes: “The idea is to provide a grid of numbers and to define a pattern within this grid per user. One user might decide on picking the numbers in the corners, clockwise. The next one might pick numbers from the second line from the right to the left. Even a relatively small grid allows for many different combinations.” That’s worth taking a look.
I was amiss in not noting the release of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11G early last month as it included the availability of the first components of Oracle Identity Management 11g, including Oracle Platform Security Services, Oracle Internet Directory 11g, Oracle Virtual Directory 11g and Oracle Identity Federation 11g. This is a major release, and one you should all look at. Especially those of you using Sun Identity Manager. Wink-wink-nudge-nudge-know-what-I-mean?
Microsoft Director of Identity Partnerships Mike Jones was justly happy to announce that the Identity Metasystem Interoperability Version 1.0 specification has been approved as an OASIS standard. This is an important step in furthering the spread of user-centric identity systems.
Finally, I did have a long conversation with Xceediums Cheryl Traverse (CEO), Aimee Rhodes (vice president of marketing) and Joshua Senzer (senior sales engineer), about their “GateKeeper” appliance, which provides access control and audit for high-risk users. This is a bit different from the usual Privileged Access Management product in that Xceedium notes that others are also in the high-risk group. These folks can be an internal employee, a contractor or a remote vendor – not only sys admins. Generally, though, they have these characteristics:
* High degree of technical knowledge and can circumvent controls.
* Requires preferred access to do jobs
* Uses powerful access tools to be efficient.
* Works across the entire heterogeneous infrastructure.
Gatekeeper is a high-end product that can keep your network and its resources secure. Get more info at the Web site.
That’s all the room I have in this issue; stay tuned for more.
