* TNT's free ID offer to educational institutions
After 2004’s Catalyst Conference, I told you a little bit about Trusted Network Technologies (see “Catching up with four ID mgmt. vendors at Catalyst”) and promised myself I’d say more about the company when there was time. And even though I spent time with the company at this year’s Catalyst show, there always seemed to be a story that was more interesting or more compelling to tell. Since I didn’t come up with the time, the only way it appeared that TNT (and what a great abbreviation that is) would get a mention is if it came up with an interesting story to tell. And so it has.
If you could get $10,000 worth of services for free, with no strings attached, would you be interested?
I’ve got to tell you up front that this offer is only for qualified colleges and universities. But the rest of you should keep reading – no telling when (or how) the program might change.
Under the rubric of “Identity Now! For Education,” TNT will work with qualified institutions to determine which users and IT systems to audit. TNT’s Identity Audit Services team (I-Team) will deploy its Identity suite in Audit Mode for two weeks, including distribution of Identity Drivers to up to 150 identified user workstations.
The initial installation and training will take one day on-site. At the end of the two-week term, the I-Team will return and provide four reports that identify and correlate connections of users, workstations, servers and applications, including unknown (non-enabled) users. Those reports are:
* A user report showing all connection activity of identified users.
* A workstation report showing all connection activity of all identified workstations, as well as unknown or unidentified users connecting from non-enabled machines.
* A server report showing connection activity of up to five critical servers identified by the organization.
* An application report showing all user connections to specific applications.
In addition, the I-team will help you to select four additional reports from the many that are available with Identity. For example, organizations that see Audit Mode results often want to report on connection activities of specific users, groups, workstations or servers.
Essentially, Identity allows every IP packet to carry its own digital signature without having to change anything between the end-points on the network the packet traverses. No public-key infrastructure, no SSL, no VPN needed; although you might want to add those things to further enhance your security, TNT doesn’t think most folks will need them. There’s a server and client component to the product, as well as a “gateway” appliance, which vets and approves (or discards) every packet coming in. You can read more about Identity in TNT’s white papers, such as “Maintaining Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance with Identity Auditing and Automated Controls”. For lighter, more entertaining or provocative reading, you should peruse the TNT Weblog, which is something I do every day.
To find out more about the “Identity Now! For Education” program, browse to the ID Now Web page where there’s also an application form.
