Vendors Simplify Access Control, User Authorization
By RUTRELL YASIN
Guaranteeing employees the right access to the right information is no
small feat. But imagine how daunting the task becomes when customers,
suppliers, and business partners are added to the mix.
Fortunately, a handful of start-up companies and some established network
suppliers are trying to make it easier for IT managers to grant access
rights to a wide range of people and groups.
Case in point: enCommerce next week will unveil getAccess 3.0 Web security
software, which combines simplified user administration with single
sign-on capabilities. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard yesterday rolled out the
Praesidium Authorization Server that lets companies securely integrate
partners into their business processes.
enCommerce, a 3-year-old company, is carving out a niche by offering
simplified management of Web single sign-on and access control. With
getAccess, security administrators "feel confident about distributing
management" of security to non-technical business-line mangers, said
Forrester Research analyst Ted Julian.
The company is extending the software's range with plug-in authentication
and authorization modules, fault tolerance through enhanced CORBA-based
services, and enhanced real-time user session management, said Monica Pal
, an enCommerce marketing manager.
IT managers can now fine-tune systems performance and control discrete
users sessions in real-time, Pal said. Plus, "if suspicious behavior is
detected or the CFO has been fired, within 30 seconds [user access] can be
turned off with a single click, even if the user has been signed on," she
said.
Pricing for the software--which runs on Unix--starts at $25 per user.
While getAccess is extending its range with each release, HP's server
might be a more "granular and extensible" product , said Julian.
HP Authorization Server--unlike many other access control
products--provides business access control through "trusted access
domains," said Cyndi Nickel, HP's business planning manager for Internet
security operations.
A trusted domain is defined by identifying users, shared business
processes, and the access privileges that's shared between them. These
domains can include small groups within a company or scale up to include a
collection of organizations from different companies, Nickel said.
The server, which costs $50,000, can also be integrated with HP OpenView's
IT Operations for enhanced systems monitoring.
-o-
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