Here’s an update for our Boston IT Consultant partners. Unlike their previous attempts to offer cloud-based security before, CA Technologies is moving a bit further this time with a package of cloud based identity and access control services.
Today, CA announced the CloudMinder portfolio of cloud-based services tied to user management and service provisioning, access, reporting, single-sign-on and standards-based federation linked to policies for identity-provider control.
These are the kind of features IT managers have at hand with CA’s on-premises product called identity Manager. But for the first time, CA will offer customers identity and access management as purely cloud-based services. One is called CA IdentityMinder as-a-Service for provisioning both on-premises and cloud services and applications. The second is CA FedMinder as-a-Service for single-sign-on across domains.
This announcement was made at the annual CA World conference recently:
According to CA’s vice president of security, Lina Liberti, competition is starting to build in what is still a new area of cloud-based identity management and security-as-a-service (SaaS) . She also expects CA to be there with the IdentityMinder and FedMinder SaaS offerings in the first quarter of next year. “There will be nothing on premise at all with this,” she points out.
The Identity Manager product was extended last year enabling it to exert the same credentialing and authorization in the Salesforce.com and Google apps environments as it might internally on premises. CA will continue to provide Identity Manager for on-premises use as it widens choices for identity management in the cloud.
It will be interesting for those of us that provide IT Consulting in Boston to see what happens with this product. Security of data is always a priority and may be what is keeping some companies from moving into the cloud.
If you would like to read the entire Network World article, just click here.
