Centrify Identity Service, Built on Microsoft Azure, Extends Office 365 Success with New Capabilities and National System Integrator Partners including Perficient
Centrify Corporation, the leader in unifying identity management across cloud, mobile and data center, today announced significant feature enhancements in secure user provisioning, license management, single sign on (SSO) and mobile device management for Office 365 (O365). Centrify Identity Service (CIS) for O365 runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and is the industry’s most comprehensive solution for Active Directory-based SSO, user provisioning and mobility management. CIS is also Microsoft-certified as a “Works with Office 365” identity partner solution. Leading O365 systems integrators like Perficient have partnered with Centrify to help customers rapidly deploy and fast-track O365 service consumption.
“Strong interest in O365 has organizations scrambling for ways to streamline deployment while maximizing productivity and security,” said Bill Mann, Chief Product Officer of Centrify. “Centrify simplifies and accelerates migration and adoption of O365. Users get single sign-on across all devices and IT can automate provisioning, centralize management and better enforce access policies.”
Granular Licensing and Entitlement
New enhancements to CIS’s automated account provisioning allow IT to get the most out of their investment. For example, automated and granular licensing takes the hassle out of provisioning by ensuring each account receives the right license and revoked accounts get repurposed as appropriate. Additionally, O365 license consumption is consolidated and automatically tracked directly within CIS—so IT can save money on licenses, and gain productivity by avoiding the manual hassles of matching user accounts with the appropriate licenses for both new account deployments, and annual true-ups.
“CIS is the ideal platform for managing O365 within an increasingly amorphous corporate perimeter,” said David Greve, director, Microsoft Cloud Strategy for Perficient. “CIS is unrivaled for its Active-Directory based SSO and its ability to manage licenses during the inevitable expansions and contractions of the workforce and its associated software and devices.”
Security and Simplicity for O365
Speeding deployment doesn’t have to mean skimping on security. With CIS, customers can implement granular security policies to ensure only the right users have access to O365. The system allows IT managers to build policies based on time, location, network, device, and more – and to implement the industry’s simplest multi-factor authentication.
Migration on IT’s Timetable
Moving into the cloud with O365 takes lots of planning, and hours of execution, and the typical all-at-once “cutover” to the cloud can be daunting. With CIS, customers can migrate on their own schedule—typically in just days versus many weeks—with full support for hybrid environments, without impacting user productivity.
SSO and Secure Access to On-premises SharePoint
Additionally, CIS provides flexibility and choice so customers can determine what remains on-premises, and what gets migrated to the cloud. CIS includes the newly created On-premises App Gateway, which enables organizations to elect to keep their SharePoint deployment on-premises, and move only their mail to O365. CIS App Gateway provides secure, encrypted access to behind-the-firewall SharePoint, with integrated SSO and no need for VPN clients or configuration. Now, whether deployed in the cloud, or in your building, users get secure one-click access, and IT gets policy-based control and visibility.
Built on Azure for full Support at Every Step of the Cloud Transition
CIS provides an end-to-end solution for customers looking to migrate to O365 simply, quickly, and without additional infrastructure. Besides being built on Microsoft Azure—the same trusted platform that also powers core functions of Office365—Office365 customers and partners are also assured of best-in-class support for their Office365 deployments with Centrify. Microsoft has tested and certified CIS as a “Works with Office 365” solution with established protocols and premier support agreements with Centrify to ensure quality joint customer support.
“Centrify eased our transition to O365 significantly,” said Richard Smith, director of IT Infrastructure and Operations at Simply Healthcare. “We initially considered using traditional federation service tools, but that meant deploying multiple servers, replicating the servers to avoid a single point of failure, and then assigning a team of engineers to manage it all – which would have required significant investments in both hardware and manpower, compared with ease of deployment of the Centrify solution.”
About Centrify
Centrify strengthens enterprise security by managing and securing user identities from cyber threats. As organizations expand IT resources and teams beyond their premises, identity is becoming the new security perimeter. With our platform of integrated software and cloud-based services, Centrify uniquely secures and unifies identity for both privileged and end users across today’s hybrid IT world of cloud, mobile and data center. The result is stronger security and compliance, improved business agility and enhanced user productivity through single sign-on. Over 5000 customers, including half of the Fortune 50 and over 80 federal agencies, leverage Centrify to secure their identity management. For more information vist here www.centrify.com.
Centrify is a registered trademark and Centrify Server Suite and Centrify Identity Service are trademarks of Centrify Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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