Identity Management

Tremolo Security Releases Unison 1.0.5

January 27, 2015

by

Marc Boorshtein

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Most costly cloud security hath broke the budget and stole thence the life o’th’ project” – Macbeth Act 2, Scene 3

While I may have taken some liberties with Shakespeare’s Macbeth I think the sentiment is a common one when deploying a new application. Macduff could very easily have been talking about the confusion that can break out when an application nears completion and someone asks “How will users login?” and no one knows the answer. Tremolo Security today is providing a product to answer that question.

In my last blog, I talked about why identity management is so expensive.   Some of the main drivers are the ownership of data and application integration. To compound these problems, the cloud brings a new layer of complexity. Will you replicate your directories into each cloud? Will you replicate your SSO services? How much will that cost? Who will approve it? When will that happen? What will the effect be on your project? There’s a better way.

Today we are proud to announce the general availability of Tremolo Security Unison 1.0.5. This is our first generally available release of a system that changes how we approach identity management. Unison combines the common functions applications need from an identity management service without having to build out a large infrastructure for support. Authentication, identity federation, virtual directory, sso and just-in-time provisioning in an identity layer that is independent of your application yet quickly integrates using a virtual appliance. You can’t change that you don’t own the identity data and you shouldn’t have to change how applications use identity data but you can close the gap by being able to quickly provide the data and security you need to applications in the way they are designed to use it.  We also minimize the impact on the data owners, making it easier to get the data your applications need.

A simple way to determine the cost of a project is to look at the diagram and count the number of lines between systems. The more lines you have, the more costly it will be. Every line between systems represents additional time and resources to design a solution, document, test and maintain. When these lines connect to systems that you as the product or application owner don’t control the costs increase even more.  The easiest way to cut the cost of a project is to cut the number of lines connecting systems.

Unison cuts down the number of connections by simplifying how applications interact with identity systems. By creating a layer between the application and identity data your developers no longer need to know or care about how every user’s identity is managed. Unison manages that for them, allowing your developers to focus on delivering application functionality. Our approach cuts the integration time from days or weeks to minutes without having to recode your application.

A great example of this process is demonstrated by our integration with the Drupal content management system (CMS). While Drupal has several modules that focus on authentication and identity management why spend time trying to integrate them into your system? How are developers going to develop in lightweight branches when they have to rely on an identity management service to be available?   How will they test with multiple roles? Unison eliminates these questions by creating a common identity service that’s almost transparent to Drupal and completely transparent to developers. Deploying Drupal to the cloud has never been easier!

You can download Unison now with a 60 day evaluation license, all without talking to a sales person or waiting for an approval. Unison’s documentation is available without registering. We also invite you to explore our wiki to see how we can help you extend your identity management into applications without having to extend a large infrastructure or create a new development effort.

Finally, if you’d like to hear more, we’d love to hear from you.