Microsoft Tuesday released the next beta of its Certificate Lifecycle Manager, a key piece of security infrastructure that supports deployments of two-factor authentication, such as smart cards.
Microsoft announced the public availability of CLM Beta 2 at the RSA Europe show in Nice, France. CLM, which is expected to ship in the second half of 2007, is policy and workflow-driven software that helps users manage smart cards and certificates from the time those are issued to the time they are revoked. CLM supports provisioning, deprovisioning, configuration and auditing. Microsoft acquired the software when it bought Alacris in September 2005.
While CLM supports digital certificates, Microsoft clearly is focusing on managing deployments of smart cards and two-factor authentication as companies look to secure corporate assets further by replacing user names and passwords.
A number of Microsoft’s high-profile customers, such as Chevron, have rolled out smart cards for just that purpose but found they had to roll their own smart card management system.
The number of smart cards shipped for corporate access to digital assets will grow to 126 million in 2010, up from 28.5 million in 2004, according to the Frost & Sullivan market research firm.
CLM works with the existing certificate infrastructure in Windows Server, which is anchored by Active Directory and Windows Server 2003 Certificate Services.
“The certificate infrastructure is there, but the difficulty has been in the life-cycle management of something like a smart card,” says Peter Houston, senior director of identity and access management at Microsoft. “CLM is making things dramatically simpler than they have been in the past. I think this makes two-factor authentication real for most customers,” he says.
Houston says Microsoft is not planning another beta before the final shipment of the software.
CLM has a Web interface, self-service management capabilities for such services as resetting PIN numbers, auditing and a card inventory system. Beta 2’s new features include support for the Microsoft Smart Card Base crypto service provider, APIs for notification and provisioning, support for the Standard and Enterprise editions of SQL Server 2005, and support for smart card middleware from Axalto, A.E.T. Europe, Siemens, Gemplus and Alladin.
Third parties, such as enterprise single sign-on vendor Passlogix, already have announced they will integrate with CLM.
Also on Tuesday, smart card vendor Gemalto said it would support CLM Beta 2 in its Gemalto .NET Smartcard. The vendor’s customers include Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Nissan, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble.
