New SUSE Powered Virtual Appliances From Centrify Secure Linux Servers On Premise And In The Cloud

ORLANDO, Fla. (SUSECon 2012) — Sept. 18, 2012 — Centrify Corporation, the leading provider of security and compliance solutions that centrally control, secure and audit access to cross-platform systems, mobile devices and applications, today from the SUSECon 2012 conference announced that its new SUSE powered software virtual appliances are now available to simplify user authentication and secure user access for applications running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, such as SAP running in customer datacenters or in the cloud.

SUSE customers can now easily apply Active Directory-based authentication, user single sign on, and access control policies upon deploying a new SUSE Linux Enterprise Server instance on premise or in the cloud. This integration also makes it simple for customers to optionally add auditing support to provide complete visibility over their SUSE Linux Enterprise Server environment using Centrify’s DirectAudit capabilities.

Centrify is a silver sponsor of SUSECon 2012, the first annual global Linux conference for SUSE customers, partners and community enthusiasts, taking place this week in Orlando, Fla. Centrify Express, the free version of Centrify Suite 2012, is now pre-installed with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on a software appliance to secure the operating system and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server applications. These virtual appliances have been built using SUSE Studio and are featured in SUSE Gallery. SUSE Studio is a web application for building and testing software applications that supports the creation of virtual- or cloud-based applications by leveraging the software appliance form-factor. SUSE Studio helps independent software vendors (ISVs) simplify virtual appliance creation, reduce development and support costs, and extend their applications to the cloud. SUSE Gallery is an integrated component of SUSE Studio which allows ISVs to publish, share, exchange, collaborate on and promote software appliances. SUSE Gallery acts as a central repository for application images or appliances. The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server-based Centrify Express virtual appliances are available today on SUSE Gallery for Amazon EC2 and any VMware-based system, with additional supported environments on the way.

“SUSE Studio now has more than 300,000 registered users since its launch in 2009. The addition of this Centrify offering will help SUSE Linux Enterprise Server customers secure access to their systems and web applications, and enhance their compliance efforts,” said Darren Davis, director of Independent Software Vendor Relations, SUSE. “With our ISV partner Centrify, SUSE Studio online users can add additional security features such as limiting access to specific systems by Active Directory group membership, and controlling how and when users can access systems.”

The Centrify virtual appliance powered by SUSE is a result of the company’s ISV partnership with SUSE. Centrify is a Silver ISV Partner in the SUSE PartnerNet Program, with Centrify’s products being listed in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Catalog. In addition, Centrify also offers an SAP-certified solution to deliver secure authentication and centralized access management for SAP Netweaver applications running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

An integrated offering of the Centrify Suite 2012 security and compliance product, DirectAudit delivers detailed, real-time auditing of privileged user sessions on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server systems. This detailed capture of historical user activity establishes accountability and advances compliance reporting by recording which users accessed which systems, what commands they executed, with what privilege, and the exact changes they made to key files and configurations. With DirectAudit, enterprises can report on historical user activity, pinpoint suspicious activity through real-time monitoring, and troubleshoot system failures by replaying actions for root-cause analysis.

“With SUSE Studio, Centrify was swiftly able to build cloud- and virtualization-ready SUSE Linux Enterprise Server software appliances with built-in support for Active Directory,” said Shreyas Sadalgi, Senior Director of Business Development at Centrify. “Customers can now deploy Centrify with one click directly from SUSE Gallery to their Amazon EC2 or VMware infrastructure, enabling a fast and flexible way to Centrify their systems and applications in minutes.”

About Centrify Express Centrify Express is a comprehensive suite of five, free Active Directory-based integration solutions providing authentication, single sign-on, remote access, file-sharing, and reporting for cross-platform systems deployed on-premise or in the cloud. Compared to other free offerings, Centrify Express includes significantly more functionality to quickly and easily integrate UNIX, Linux and Mac systems into a Windows environment and offers more advanced enterprise features for upgrade. Centrify Express comprises: DirectControl Express for Active Directory-based authentication and single sign-on; DirectManage Express for centrally discovering and managing non-Windows systems, deploying Centrify software, and administering local Linux accounts; Centrify-enabled versions of OpenSSH, PuTTY and Samba for optimized remote access and file-sharing leveraging Active Directory; Centrify Insight™, a Splunk-based application for integrating identity and access management (IAM) with security information and event management (SIEM), as well as providing operational intelligence regarding cross-platform systems; and Centrify Cloud Tools for securing Linux systems deployed in the cloud.

Availability Centrify supports SUSE virtual appliance images for Amazon EC2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2, 64-bit; and VMware image, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware, 64-bit. It is available today on the SUSE Gallery, a collection of complete customized SUSE Studio and Linux solutions for SLES partners. For more information, see http://susestudio.com/search?q=centrify.

About Centrify Centrify delivers integrated software and cloud-based solutions that centrally control, secure and audit access to cross-platform systems, mobile devices and applications by leveraging the infrastructure organizations already own — Microsoft Active Directory. From the data center and into the cloud, more than 4,500 organizations, including 40 percent of the Fortune 50 and more than 60 Federal agencies, rely on Centrify’s identity consolidation and privilege management solutions to reduce IT expenses, strengthen security and meet compliance requirements. For more information about Centrify and its solutions, call +1 (408) 542-7500 or visit http://www.centrify.com/.