* Try out PingFederate Version 4 for free
Cliches are like standards – there’s so many to choose from that there is almost guaranteed to be one to support whatever thesis you’re currently arguing. Some would say “the best things in life are free,” while others chime in that “you get what you pay for,” and still others aver that “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.” I guess there’s some truth to all three, but:
* There are some very good things that aren’t free – the world’s best wines can set you back a couple of hundred per glass, and be worth it.
* More often than I care to admit, I find I get less than I paid for (at least, when I compare it to what I used to get for that price – think gasoline/petrol).
* If you don’t ask the price, you’re liable to pay more than you want to. I don’t often buy ties, but I saw one that I thought was gorgeous, and only $27.50. Well, my eyes seemed to misplace the decimal point, because the salesman informed me it was $275!
All of this is preparatory to telling you about two new free offers from two old friends, Ping Identity and MaXware. Don’t treat the offers lightly, and don’t hesitate to jump on them. I’ll tell you about the Ping offering today and go into the one from MaXware next issue.
Ping has just released a new version (Version 4) of its federation server (PingFederate). While Ping was the first to market a federation server, it hasn’t rested on its laurels but continues to offer improvements and enhancements. Version 4 adds support for SAML Versions 1.0 and 1.1 (PingFederate had already supported SAML 2.0) as well as the competing WS-Federation standard. There’s also a new use case-driven configuration wizard, which only asks the administrator for parameters relevant to the protocol chosen for a connection, reducing complexity and minimizing errors.
Version 4 adds role-based administration – four separate administrator roles that can be assigned depending on organizational and regulatory requirements. There’s also new, configurable, logging to provide a detailed audit trail of all administrative actions.
As with previous versions of PingFederate, you can download it and use it free for six months or 100,000 transactions – whichever comes first.
Ping also announced that PingLogin, called “an authentication and single sign-on framework for consumer-facing online services and Web applications,” would ship next month. This is Java-based middleware to tie your Web authentication to your enterprise identity management while allowing for flexible and extensible login scenarios: strong authentication, federation, multifactor login, etc. PingLogin will be available under the same terms as PingFederate – free to use for six months or 100,000 transactions.
Check all the details at the Ping Web site, then download and try them out – they just might be the right tools for you. In the words of another cliché, you’ll never know until you try.
*** There’s a new bi-lingual freebie available, too. This is a new white paper from Evidian with both a French and English version. “Authorization management workflow” (“Un workflow de gestion des habilitations”) is described as being about “the benefits that organizations reap when they use a workflow to manage their access rights, using examples.” In other words, it’s a good source of justification for automated provisioning. Check it out, or in the words of my translation engine: “le jeter un coup d’oeil sur” – but that doesn’t look right to me!
