Centrify Express Connects Macs, Linux To Active Directory

The new, free software from the identity and access management vendor gives Mac and Linux users single sign-on to Microsoft Active Directory services.Centrify is a founding member of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, formed to promote interoperability between Macs and Windows. The company already offers the Centrify Suite of Active Directory-based access and identity management software. But for organizations with "just a few non-critical Linux systems or Macs" (in Centrify's words), Centrify Express offers a simple route to single sign-on and password policy enforcement.

The Express product provides a subset of the features of the entire suite. In includes DirectControl Express, which provides the single sign-on capability and also lets OS X and Windows servers be part of an Active Directory domain; DirectManage Express, which discovers and validates non-Windows systems on a network; a group of Centrify-enabled open source tools and utilities; and Centrify Express Community, for supporting best practices through forums, how-to videos, and so on.

"Cross-platform identity and access management solutions have traditionally been too costly and complex for smaller to medium sized businesses, but they often have some of the same security and compliance requirements such as PCI as larger organizations," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing at Centrify. "Centrify's approach of leveraging Active Directory combined with our free Express offering will now allow those organizations to easily improve security and compliance for their systems and layer on additional capabilities as their business evolves." The free software can be downloaded here.