Securant Technologies Inc. is looking to take some of the heat off overworked security administrators with the launch this week of its Enterprise Transparency Architecture.
The architecture provides a link between security policies that govern access to applications and to the wealth of user information stored in various locations on a corporate network. The software will integrate with the companys ClearTrust policy management infrastructure to automate the access control function.
The system extracts data stored in LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directories, databases, middleware and security systems and analyzes it to determine whether a user is authorized to access an application or a Web service.
The goal is to enable enterprises to deploy ETA—and a set of forthcoming modules that will sit on top of it—without having to change their network architectures.
“We want to work with what these companies already have in place,” said Eric Olden, chief technology officer of San Francisco-based Securant. “Were trying to drive a seamless experience across multiple sites. Trading partners dont want to have to change their schemas for every company they do business with.”
At the heart of ETA is LDAP Plus, a proprietary implementation of the directory protocol that Securant designed for ETA. LDAP Plus enables ClearTrust to integrate natively with LDAP directories and monitor and audit changes to LDAP data to deliver a higher level of security in the directory.
As a result, some IT managers said this type of architecture could create huge savings in time and money.
“Were anticipating a dramatic reduction in the amount of work that has to be done,” said Kevin Cornish, IT director at DigitalThink Inc., a Securant customer and San Francisco-based e-learning company that manages more than 650,000 students online. “We host a ton of applications on the Web, and [ETA] will become the front door for all of our partners and customers.”
Securant will also announce this week the availability of Secure Control 4.6, which provides integration with IBMs resource access control facility mainframe security system as well as with products from vendors such as BEA Systems Inc., Citrix Systems Inc. and iPlanet Inc. The integration capabilities will allow customers to install a complete management infrastructure without having to perform custom development work.