Protected: The 12 Critical Questions You Need to Ask When Choosing an AD Bridge Solution

Most enterprises today have heterogeneous IT environments, with Microsoft Active Directory (AD) providing Windows access for most users, but with other platforms such as Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X providing critical services as well. But each of these systems has its own identity, authentication, and access requirements. This means users can have dozens or hundreds of passwords to remember and enter, and administrators may have dozens or hundreds of identities per user to provision, re-provision, deprovision, and administer.AD bridge solutions address this problem by enabling Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X systems to participate as “full citizens” in Active Directory. Consolidating identities into AD reduces complexity and costs while improving security, compliance, and productivity. This white paper identifies a number of key questions to ask when evaluating AD bridge solutions, and explains how One Identity delivers the ideal solutions to meet the needs of every organization.

The problem with UnixThe vast majority of modern enterprises consist of heterogeneous systems. Typically, an enterprise will have a large Microsoft Active Directory (AD) environment that houses identities and provides Windows access for the largest portion of its user population. In addition to AD, most organizations also have a large mix of other platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, mainframes, and midrange systems, along with myriad applications—each with its own identity store, authentication, and access capabilities and requirements. This overabundance of identity and authentications is the source of many efficiency, security, and compliance problems, especially for organizations with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of Unix/Linux servers.