Centrify announced today that the company has earned the U.S. Army Certificate of Networthiness for its DirectControl For Mac suite. DirectControl for Mac expands on OS X’s native Active Directory support and allows companies and organizations to secure and manage Mac desktops and notebooks using the same group policy architecture that they use to secure and manage Windows PCs.
The certification has direct implications for the use of DirectControl for Mac on Army networks. It also illustrates the extremely high level of effectiveness that DirectControl for Mac can offer in terms of workstation and network security. This makes the certification a valuable symbol for Centrify as an enterprise vendor. It also demonstrates that it is possible to deploy Macs successfully and securely in situations where security and privacy are primary concerns in military, government, and private sector enterprises.
The certification joins two other major certifications government and military that Centrify had achieved previously. Those include the federal government’s FIPS 140-2 Level 1 Certification and the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) certification for support of Common Access Cards (CAC) and strong authentication.
The JITC certification has particular impact with respect Mac’s running Lion. In Lion, Apple deprecated OS X’s built-in support smart card authentication, which is a common requirement for defense divisions as well as for military contractors. That move was among shifts that Apple has made over the past two years in its enterprise strategy. As we’ve noted before, Apple is relying more on outside companies to provide advanced Mac and iOS integration with business and enterprise technologies.
Centrify notes that the CoN certification comes at a time when Centrify’s products are seeing widespread adoption by the U.S. federal government.
In addition to DirectControl for Mac, Centrify offers DirectControl editions oriented for Linux and Unix systems as well as SAP, web apps, and databases. The company also recently introduced a public beta of DirectControl for Mobile, which allows for management of iOS devices using Active Directory. Centrify plans to expand the available features in DirectControl for Mobile over time using a freemium model and also plans to support Android devices.
