Quest Authentication Services 4.0 – The leading Active Directory bridge product

We just released Quest Authentication Services 4.0. We’ve been shipping QAS since 2003 and this major release is a significant milestone with respect to the new capabilities we’ve engineered into the product. What are some of these new capabilities?

• Detailed Auditing and Alerting: Consolidating Unix data into Active Directory is just part of the picture. Authentication Services 4.0 solves the challenge of how to audit, report and alert on who makes changes to critical Unix data that is now stored in Active Directory. Version 4.0 includes award winning functionality to deliver full visibility and change alerting into who made changes, to what, when, where, and even why.
• Web-based Administrative Console: Effective management is essential when integrating Unix with Active Directory. The new web-based administration console dramatically simplifies deployment, expands management to local Unix users and groups, provides granular reports on key data and attributes, and streamlines the overall management of the Active Directory Bridge product from any web browser.
• One-time Password Authentication: Easily add another layer of security in situations that require it. For example when deploying Unix systems to tightly controlled network environments (e.g., DMZ). With new functionality included in Authentication Services 4.0, Active Directory users can be required to authenticate with a One Time Password to Unix systems. Everything that is required for an out-of-the-box solution comes with 4.0 including hardware and software tokens, PAM modules, Group Policy management capabilities and end-user licenses.
• Freeware Administrative Console: The administrative console is available free-of-charge to any organization wishing to take advantage of its local Unix user and group management capabilities.
• Advanced Management: Support for the flexible scripting of PowerShell, additional ADUC integration, and automated configuration tools.
• Group Policy: Group Policy functionality expands to include macro support, which enables a single GPO to be re-used across multiple Unix systems. In addition Mac OS X Group Policy support keeps pace with the latest OS from Apple (OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard).
• Privileged Account Management: Authentication Services 4.0 includes optimized integration with Quest Privilege Manager for Unix. Solve Unix security initiatives that need to control which users can access which system and what elevated rights they have. For example use Active Directory group memberships and Group Policy for streamlined management tasks.

We’ve talked with hundreds of customers, partners and analysts over the last twelve months and much of their input is included in this release. We’ve got a lot more to come over the rest of 2010 – stay tuned!

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