Novell Releases Access Manager 3.1 with Built-in Support for WS-Federation

New release leverages Microsoft technical collaboration to ease identity management interoperability

Novell announced a new version of its access management solution. Novell® Access Manager™ 3.1 now offers built-in support for WS-federation, a single sign-on feature typically offered in costly, supplementary federated identity products. This makes Novell Access Manager the industry’s most full-featured Web access management offering.

Leveraging Novell’s groundbreaking technical collaboration with Microsoft, Novell Access Manager 3.1 offers support for WS-Federation, one of the WS-* standard set of interoperable access and authentication standards, allowing organizations to easily and securely share business data in mixed-source IT environments. As a result, Novell Access Manager enables IT security administrators to grant non-Windows directory users, partners or organizations, single sign-on access to Microsoft web-based products such as Microsoft Office SharePoint*.

"Microsoft is committed to interoperability between Active Directory and other directory services, as part of significant investments in federation, participation in industry efforts, and partnerships with a broad range of software vendors" said Joe Long, general manager in the Identity and Security Division at Microsoft. "We are pleased to work with Novell to address identity management interoperability needs, while enabling more secure collaboration within, and between organizational boundaries"

In today’s heterogeneous IT infrastructure, identity information is often stored in multiple locations and application-specific identity stores, such as Microsoft Active Directory* - the identity store for authenticating users to Microsoft Office* SharePoint. Novell Access Manager leverages WS-Federation to provide single sign-on for users that are not primarily located in Microsoft Active Directory*.

"Organizations typically have more than one directory where identity information is stored" said Jim Ebzery, senior vice president and general manager for Identity and Security Management at Novell. "Access Manager securely, and simply facilitates the user authentication process between web-based applications that use disparate identity stores, so you don’t have to spend hours syncing your identity information"

Novell Access Manager provides a secure and simple way to federate identities from any LDAP directory into a Microsoft infrastructure, eliminating the need to purchase a separate identity federation product. This cost and time-saving feature is important for organizations that need an access management solution that supports a broad range of platforms and directory services in complex multi-vendor computing environments.

"Many large enterprises continue to tackle the challenge of providing single sign-on across multiple applications based on user information that may be distributed among various internal and external directories" said Gerry Gebel, vp and service director at Burton Group. "Technologies that support industry standards and integrate web access management, federation, and other technologies are well positioned to address enterprise requirements"

Novell Access Manager 3.1 simplifies and safeguards online asset-sharing, helping customers control access to Web-based and traditional business applications. Trusted users gain secure authentication and access to portals, Web-based content and enterprise applications, while IT administrators gain centralized policy-based management of authentication and access privileges. For more information about Novell Access Manager, please visit: www.novell.com/accessmanager

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.