Monday, April 02, 2007

How Dell Streamlined Authentication and Identity Management

The May, 2007 issue of Dell Power Solutions will contain an excellent case study on how Dell uses Quest's Vintela Authentication Services for streamlining and consolidating their authentication and identity management around Active Directory.

The decision to use Active Directory came after Dell launched a project called Multi-Platform Management Integration (MPMI). Its goal was to make the Microsoft Active Directory directory service the authoritative authentication system and master source for all user accounts across all systems within Dell—those running Microsoft Windows, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and the various Linux operating systems. Dell chose not to create yet another directory or build a synchronization solution - they chose to consolidate and simplify their identity management infrastructure.

Yah, baby!

Dell has about 2,200 Linux and UNIX servers that they have now integrated with Active Directory. Dell tried the open source approach but, in the end, decided on a commercial solution. After evaluating and eliminating the competition they chose Quest. According to Dell, "One solution quickly rose to the top"...

“Vintela Authentication Services is the best product we have found on the market,” concludes David Taylor, Principal Linux engineer at Dell. “It satisfies our needs and can help us expand where we need to in the future.”

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1 comment:

Matt Bowler said...

Allow me to share another quote from the article:

“Quest Professional Services guided us
through the design of the solution,” says Taylor.
“With so many differences across platforms and
all that we wanted to accomplish, it was a more
involved process than it originally appeared.
Quest helped us design the Group Policy Objects
we used in our rollout."

Quest PS worked with a very talented Dell Linux/Unix team to get integrate these systems in a relatively short time. The Vintela Group Policy (VGP) extensins are always the fun part, allowing a unix, windows, or security admin to centrally control and report on almost any aspect of any number of unix servers - we have done implementations in the thousands of boxes. Quest PS helped Dell, we can help your company, too.

Matthew Bowler
IDM Architect
Quest Software

Quest IDM Professional Services