Identity Engines Releases Authenticated Network Architecture

Market Wire, July, 2008

Identity Engines, a leading provider of role-based access control solutions for heterogeneous networks, today announced the Authenticated Network Architecture (ANA): the industry's first vendor-neutral best practices framework outlining how organizations can migrate from the static, IP-address based architectures of the past, to the newer identity-based controls enabled by recent standards including IEEE 802.1X.

Regulatory compliance mandates such as HIPAA, SOX, PCI, GLBA, NERC/FERC, FERPA, HSPD-12 across multiple industries have driven IT organizations to search for secure, efficient, cost-effective methods of controlling access to their network infrastructure. The ANA framework fulfills that need by leveraging latent enforcement capabilities present in most enterprise network equipment, enabling transparent role-based access across all existing infrastructure (wired, wireless, remote access).

"The deployment of authenticated networks has been slower than the network industry originally anticipated," commented Jon Oltsik, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "This is probably due as much to a lack of vendor-neutral best-practices as it is any weaknesses in the underlying technology. With ANA, Identity Engines is addressing both gaps by publishing an extensive set of field-validated best practices to complement its leadership in the authenticated network infrastructure itself."

Simon Lewis, chief executive officer of Dataway, a San Francisco and Dublin, Ireland-based secure network consultancy and reseller had this to say, "If you built a new network, it seems obvious to design in authentication and authorization to see who is connected and for what purpose. Historically, network and security administrators have never had tools to enforce anything but the most basic of authentication checks. With ANA, large scale enterprises such as hospital systems now have a much richer framework to ensure authenticated access to critical networks across all modes of access. This is the first fully-baked architecture that Dataway can use in support of its many clients in the healthcare field and other industries."

With the launch of the ANA framework, Identity Engines is making available a whitepaper that familiarizes readers with business and technology realities that have driven networking to its security crossroads. The paper details a 5-phase evolutionary approach to migrate an existing enterprise infrastructure to a fully identity-centric network.

Authored by Identity Engines' CTO, Sean Convery, the Authenticated Network Architecture whitepaper is the next logical step in secure network design and builds on his previous leadership as principal architect of the Cisco SAFE Blueprint and author of the well-regarded textbook "Network Security Architectures."

"We're delighted to release the Authenticated Network Architecture to the public as it not only demonstrates Identity Engines' technology leadership and expertise in this market but the expertise of its customers and partners, many of whom have contributed to the framework to ensure its technical soundness and usefulness," said Convery.

The Authenticated Network Architecture document is available now at http://www.idengines.com/ana .

About Identity Engines

Founded in 2004, Identity Engines develops scalable, identity-based solutions for securing enterprise networks. The company's solutions provide comprehensive identity services such as authentication, authorization, and auditing to network infrastructure at Fortune 500 corporations, leading medical centers, state and local governments and education and research institutions. Identity Engines' Ignition product line is the only end-to-end authenticated infrastructure solution that enables fine-grained access control across distributed network devices while enabling centralized administration and policy management for improved security and compliance. For more information, visit http://www.idengines.com .

Contact: Roy Chua Identity Engines Email Contact