UNIFY selected as SAP's first Australian Identity Management partner

SAP Australia and UNIFY Solutions have announced that UNIFY has become SAP's first Australian Specialist Solutions Partner specialising in Identity Management.

Under the agreement, UNIFY will work closely with SAP and its partner community to position and implement SAP NetWeaver Identity Management solutions. The partnership recognises the importance of identity management solutions in the context of heterogeneous IT environments.

"Today's competitive and global business environment demands that organisations open up their enterprises to make important resources available to more people than ever before," said Mark Goodall, Managing Director, UNIFY Solutions.

"Business users are typically working with multiple devices, applications and systems across company boundaries with customers, partners and suppliers. This increases cost, risk and complexity. At the same time, these organisations are required to provide unprecedented levels of transparency to outside stakeholders.

"As a result, compliance continues to be a primary business driver in the identity and access management market. Customers are increasingly demanding seamless integration between their GRC and identity management solutions as they contend with growing security threats and increasing regulatory oversight. SAP is in an exceptional position to assist customers address these complex challenges."

SAP General Manager Specialist Solutions Sales, Patrick Elliott, stated that CIOs are required to facilitate greater collaboration and connectivity within and outside the enterprise, without compromising data integrity.

"In an environment of heightened corporate governance, CIOs need the strategy and the tools to ensure the demands for increased collaboration can be matched by adequate compliance and security. SAP's Governance Risk and Compliance solution set provides a way to ensure compliance in an increasingly distributed and highly regulated environment.

"We are very pleased to partner with identity management specialist UNIFY Solutions to enable customers to easily extend our GRC Identity Management solutions through their broader business networks of suppliers, partners, customers," said Mr Elliott.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY becomes Microsoft Gold Certified Security Partner

UNIFY Solutions Managing Director, Mr Mark Goodall, today announced that UNIFY has become a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Security, and Identity and Access Management. It has also joined the Microsoft Security Software Advisor Program.

These certifications are based on UNIFY's references and consultancy skills for MIIS (ILM), Active Directory, Sharepoint and associated products.

Mr Goodall stated that UNIFY is executing its plans to offer comprehensive business and product advice to organisations considering Microsoft security solutions. This advice is based on the broad experience that UNIFY has had implementing solutions across a range of industry segments, and understanding how to address the complexities of process change required to successfully implement security and identity projects.

For more information contact Mark Goodall at: mark.goodall@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY Chairman Ian Ferrier partners with GHK Green Krejci

UNIFY Solutions Chairman Ian Ferrier has joined GHK Green Krejci which has changed its name to GHK Ferrier Green Krejci Silvia with the addition of new partners - Ian Ferrier and Brian Silvia. This restructure is aimed at driving the national expansion plans of the Sydney-based chartered accountant.

Ian Ferrier, a former founding partner of Ferrier Hodgson, has over 40 years experience in corporate recovery and insolvency. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and has significant experience in property and development, tourism, manufacturing, retail, hospitality and hotels, infrastructure and aviation and service industries. Apart from his role as Official Liquidator and Trustee in Bankruptcy, Ian has also been involved in many business activities including, the Chairman of InvoCare Limited, Chairman of Port Douglas Reef Resorts Limited and a Director of McGuigan Simeon Wines Limited, Macquarie Goodman Group Limited and Australian Oil Company Limited.

UNIFY announces release of Sharepoint Management Agent Suite

UNIFY Chief Technology Officer, Peter Tiernan, announced today release of a MOSS User Profile xMA to enable MOSS user profile stores to participate in ILM designs on equal terms with other enterprise directories such as Active Directory or an organisation's HR application.  

The xMA will enable administrators to

- Turn the "My Site" feature into a true enterprise "White Pages" application which is no longer bound by your AD schema, thereby allowing synchronisation of user profiles with data from more than one authoritative source. 
- provision and populate custom WSS lists synthesized from ILM, and extend this to automate custom workflows such as user account creation, or moderation of user self service (e.g. ensure only moderated changes are flowed back to ILM).
- provision individual site access where group membership is not flexible or reliable enough to be applied.
- enable your MOSS user profile store to participate in your ILM design on equal terms with other enterprise directories such as AD or your HR system. 

Built using the ILM SDK, each MA in the UNIFY MOSS/WSS xMA suite supports all run profile operations, including full and delta imports (read), and export (including insert/update/delete) operations.  Even with large user profile stores, full imports are executed quickly and efficiently.  For User Profiles, the native MOSS 2007 UserProfileService.asmx web service is complemented with a custom UserProfileServiceEx.asmx web service to support deletions.

For more information contact: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY joins South Australian Government eProjects Panel

UNIFY Solutions today announced that it has been accepted as a member of the South Australian Government's eProjects Panel. This Panel process provides South Australian government agencies with a level of pre-qualification of capability, organisation and legal details that enables them to streamline their procurement activity.

The eProjects Panel allows pre-qualified Vendors to respond to RFQs from Agencies wishing to procure ICT project based services.

Vendors agree to supply services using a standardised contract construct and associated processes, and are vetted to determine that they have sufficient capability and capacity to provide services to government agencies.

Agencies post to the eProjects panel Portal details of short term project work for:

• System development/deployment
• System integration
• Professional Projects services
• Other Information and Technology projects

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY builds CHRIS 21 Identity Management solution for ABB Grain

ABB Grain has engaged UNIFY Solutions to develop an MIIS based solution to provision user credentials from CHRIS21 HR to Active Directory. UNIFY is to replace the existing manual processes with a real-time solution which incorporates its flagship software UNIFYConnect for CHRIS 21 and UNIFYNow. UNIFYConnect will provide MIIS with real-time events identifying changes to CHRIS data. UNIFYNow monitors identity stores, and causes MIIS to run only the run profiles required, at the time they are required. UNIFYNow is also persistent, ensuring that there is no loss of critical user information. ABB Grain will be confident that all identity stores contain the same information, removing redundant manual processing.

UNIFY is also delivering its password reset portals, allowing self-service password resets to ABB Grain's geographically diverse user base. ABB Grain manages all grain delivery in storage within South Australia, and has subsidiary arms in Victoria and New Zealand. Self-service password reset solves the problem of providing support for the different time zones that ABB Grain users operate in.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

AGIMO selects UNIFY for IAM Consultancy Panel

UNIFY Solutions has been selected on the Department of Finance and Administration's Identity Management and Authentication Consultancy Services Panel (FIN06AGI014-15) to provide consultancy services under the Identity and Access management Category..

This panel is expected to be in place for three years and will be used by the Australian Government Information Management to obtain:

1. advice and support in the development and refinement of whole of government, and cross government, ICT frameworks, policies and for guidance on identity management and authentication matters;
2. assistance with the provision of support to agencies and other jurisdictions that are pursuing individual projects pertaining to identity management and authentication; and
3. in the event that Finance pursues ICT projects that encompass identity management and authentication matters, consultancy advice on any such projects.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

QDETA selects UNIFY as a key IdM Strategic partner

UNIFY Solutions has extended its relationship with the Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts with our selection on the Department's panel of Identity Management Strategic Partners following evaluation of responses to its recent open tender process.

The Department is seeking to use its preferred supplier agreement for an IdM strategic partner to obtain resources needed to deliver specialist IdM support to the DETA IdM Project Office.  Strategic partners will be required to provide IdM market analysis and evaluation; ongoing strategic advice and advice on alignment and compliance of projects with the DETA IdM Strategy.

For more information contact: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

QDETA selects UNIFY for independent IdM advice

UNIFY Solutions has been engaged by the Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts (DETA) to provide independent Identity Management advice. Our role is to assist the department in developing an Identity Management strategy as a part of a move to an enterprise wide platform deployment. The key focus initially is around providing better integration of existing systems and authoritative sources.

DETA has complex Identity Management requirements with its need to manage:
• Approximately 550,000 staff and students, and expanding to parents in the future
• The integration of a number of major system initiatives with complex interdependencies
• Access to E-Learning facilities for Staff, Students and identities external to the department
• Access to resources anywhere and anytime on multiple platforms and technologies
• Internal and externally hosted development environments; and
• Geographic diverse sites that are accessed across varying speed network links

UNIFY is well placed to assist Australian education departments given its cumulative experience with the ACT and South Australian education departments, tertiary education institutions, and its cross platform expertise.

For more information contact: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net 

WorkCover NSW to provision using CHRIS HR & Payroll, MIIS, and UNIFY Solutions

WorkCover NSW has engaged UNIFY Solutions to develop and implement a solution to connect the CHRIS HR system via MIIS to Active Directory. WorkCover NSW aims to achieve near real time provisioning, and to support continuous compliance with user registrations and removals.

UNIFY Solutions was chosen to perform this work due to its knowledge and skills in the MIIS space, as well as for its continuous compliance products that extend MIIS, and its CHRIS connector technologies.
A key recommendation within WorkCover's Standard Security Model was the use of the CHRIS HR & Payroll application as an integral component of their Identity Management solution. The integration of Chris HR, Active Directory and Microsoft's MIIS 2003 server platform is now the foundation architecture for an enterprise-wide Identity Management deployment within WorkCover NSW. UNIFYConnect for CHRIS is being used as key element for the WorkCover standard security infrastructure in conjunction with MIIS as the preferred IdM platform.

For more information contact: terry kimball@unifysolutions.net

MaXware Extends reach into Australian Market

Identity Management specialist software supplier Maxware has extended its reach into the Australian market with new contracts in the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) and ACT Electricity & Water / AGL and a major extension of its product range in the Department of Defence.
UNIFY Solutions is MaXware's distributor in the Australia and new Zealand region. Managing Director, Mark Goodall, outlined today that several organisations were realizing the tremendous value MaXware Identity Centre (MIC) now provides and the rich capability achievable by upgrading from current DSE implementations.

Specifically clients are taking advantage of the full MaXware Identity Management suite functionality including:
• synchronizing and joining existing accounts
• integrating and virtualizing identity information from diverse repositories
• setting up a complete workflow and provisioning system for distributed account management
• password handling across multiple applications
• federation across disparate security domains
• virtualizing data to ensure relevance to the various clients

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

The Department of Environment and Heritage to build Identity management solution on SAP HR and MIIS

UNIFY Solutions has been engaged by the Federal Department of Environment and Heritage to provide an SAP HR based identity management solution. This project utilizes UNIFY Solutions' SAP HR Management Agent for MIIS, the only real-time solution for provisioning from SAP HR to MIIS which is compatible with SAP release 4.6.

The first phase of this solution will use SAP HR as the authoritative source of identity data, driving Active Directory user lifetime and details, as well as providing the foundation for applications such as departmental White Pages and integration with systems such as TRIM and custom internal applications. It is a real-time solution, utilizing UNIFY's UNIFYNow to drive MIIS in an event-driven manner.

The Department of Environment and Heritage aims to:
• Reduce complexity and improve efficiencies by implementing MIIS to manage identities within the department, and relying on key authoritative sources such as SAP and Active Directory.
• Improve end user experience and reduce application development complexity by relying on Active Directory / ADAM, combined with aggregated Identity Data, for managing the authentication and authorisation to corporate applications .
• Improve communication within the department by placing organisational and contact information in the hands of departmental staff .

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

UNIFYSolutions annouces Real Time Provisioning and Continuous compliance for SAP HR and Microsoft Indentity Integration Server (MIIS 2003)

Unify Solutions Managing Director, Mark Goodall, today annouced that its Real Time SAP provisioning and continuous compliance solution for  MIIS would be released in 2006 calandar year.
The UNIFYConnect SAP HR Management Agent (MA) for MIIS enables organisations to achieve continuous security and compliance using their SAP HR application as an authoritative source for Identity and Role based provisioning.

As the HR System is the natural source of identity data in an organization,
the ability to connect to SAP HR is essential for any SAP-reliant organization
to usefully implement Identity and Access Management.

Together with MIIS, the UNIFYConnect SAP solution provides a Commercial
off the Shelf (COTS) approach for enterprise wide provisioning based upon the Microsoft platform.
UNIFYConnect SAP allows organisations to create a feature rich SAP provisioning service, based upon MIIS which will provide the following unique functionality:
• Event Driven: For both security and compliance reasons, the MA must be and
is event driven. This means the real-time driving of SAP HR employee creates
& modifications through the MIIS based solution, resulting in a real-time identity management solution. Change information in SAP HR, and it will immediately
flow through to relevant connected systems. When used in conjunction with UNIFYNow, UNIFYConnect SAP MA provides real-time, event based
provisioning to the MIIS enterprise.
• Organisational structure information: The MA natively provisions Organisation Structure information from SAP HR either inline with the employees, or as a
separate connector.
• Hierarchy Management: Ensures that the employees provisioned from SAP HR
are provisioned in the correct order (managers before subordinates) in all cases.
This functionality is vital for maintaining organisation structure referential integrity
in an Identity Management solution.
• UNIFYConnect shields SAP from performance impacts, and minimizes
the interaction of the identity management solution with SAP. Standard MIIS
solutions are often quite heavy on an HR system, sending large queries too frequently. UNIFYConnect answers those queries itself, and also encourages
a changes-only model.
• Future events: Future starts, terminations, and other events in SAP HR are handled efficiently and automatically.

The UNIFYConnect series builds on Microsoft's approach to Identity Management with MIIS. As Gartner Group has noted, Microsoft's approach is focused on directly solving enterprise access management problems – authentication and authorisation
as well as user account management – rather than creating middleware to manage complex authorisation environments.

UNIFYSolutions Wins 2006 Consensus Software Award

UNIFY Solutions has won a prestigious 2006 Consensus Software Award for its UNIFYNow product.

UNIFYNow enables any organisation (worldwide) which uses Microsoft's Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003 as the foundation for their Identity Management Solution, to retain the integrity and reliability of an MIIS based solution, while gaining event driven timing that provisions identities and information when changes occur, at the time they occur and only for the relevant changes.  This capability is increasingly being realized as a requirement for both security and compliance aspects of Identity Management.

The 2006 Consensus Software Award was presented at a gala dinner held in Sydney last night at which Stephen Ciobo MP, Member for Moncrieff gave the keynote address on behalf of the Hon. Senator Helen Coonan, Minster for Communications and Information Technology, and the Hon. Senator Stephen Conroy, Shadow Minister for Communications and Information Technology, presented the awards.
UNIFY Solutions was one of 24 Australian software development companies to be shortlisted for the 2006 Consensus Awards.

Now in its seventh year, the Consensus Awards recognise excellence in software design and provide the credibility and exposure necessary for Australian developed products to break into new markets. Winners of the Consensus Software Award must demonstrate market potential and an innovative approach to product development, which has resulted in and promises to continue to offer clear performance benefits to end users.

"We are delighted to have received this prestigious award, which recognises our commitment to innovative software development in a niche increasingly important for our customers. It comes at a strategic time when our solutions are being widely adopted in this region and we are about to promote them globally." said Mr Mark Goodall, Managing Director of UNIFY Solutions.
Current UNIFYNow software users include SUNCORP and the South Australian Department of Education.
For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

MaXware's Founder to visit Australia

 UNIFY Solutions Managing Director, Mark Goodall, announced today that the founder of MaXware, Tore Wold, and MaXware Chief Technical Officer, Tor Even Dahl, would visit Australia from 3 – 6 May this year. They will meet with important customers such as Telstra, Defence, DEWR and ACTEW AGL, and present latest product updates and news from MaXware to partners such as Loop Technology and eB2B.
 
MaXware is a market leader (recognised by the Burton Group and Gartner Group analysts) in providing vendor independent Identity Management (IdM) products and solutions. The company's IdM products are platform-independent and flexible to meet the diverse needs of large, heterogeneous organizations looking to securely and efficiently access and manage identity information across globally distributed directories, databases and other data repositories.

MaXware has been particularly active in addressing market requirements and has recently
• Been recognised by Gartner in its Magic Quadrant for user provisioning
• Secured RSA SecureID certification for MaXware Identity Center - MIC. The MaXware Identity Center - RSA ClearTrust integration provides unified management for entitlements across Web Access Management (WAM) and other applications, reducing the cost of managing digital identities. A concise audit of all transactions and extensive reporting capabilities enhance security over many of the manual processes employed by companies today. In addition to creating a more secure and tightly audited solution, an automated and repeatable process is ideal for helping organizations meet compliancy issues. The integration also provides administrators and managers increased efficiency by consolidating user and group management. Web self service and delegated administration relieve managers from tedious administrative busy work. Increased user efficiency, reduced administrative burden and increased security mean that focus can be placed back on growing business.
• Announced Ståle Svenning as chief executive officer and president. Svenning brings to MaXware nearly 15 years of experience in executive management, technology consulting and business process reengineering in key markets, including financial services, telecommunications, government and healthcare.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

Real-time MIIS now a self installing product

The Managing Director of UNIFY Solutions today announced that version 1.5 of UNIFYNow will be released on 21 March 2006. UNIFYNow already allows organisations to retain the integrity and reliability of an MIIS based solution, while gaining event driven timing that provisions identities and information when changes occur, at the time they occur (and only for the relevant changes).  This release will allow customers to self install the solution.

UNIFYNow also extends MIIS to be a real-time, persistent platform ensuring that events are always processed and provisioned to the relevant application or service.
UNIFYNow consists of two separate applications and an API.  The first application is a multi-threaded engine which processes events, requests and scheduled processes relating to run profiles for MIIS 2003.  The second application is a management console for the collection and management of information required by the engine.

These two applications are called the UNIFYNow Event Management Engine (UEME) and the UNIFYNow Event Management Console (UEMC) respectively.  The API is called the UNIFYNow Event API (UNAPI ).
UNIFYNow has been registered for copyright in the US and granted an Innovation Patent in Australia.

For more information contact Peter Tiernan at: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY Opens Brisbane Office

The Managing Director of UNIFY Solutions, Mark Goodall, today announced that UNIFY Solutions would open its Brisbane office on 1 March 2006. UNIFY will be located on Edward Street in Brisbane City.

The move represents commitment to Queensland where UNIFY has been selected for strategic Identity Management business over the past year by Suncorp Bank, Gold Coast City Council, and Rio Tinto.

Craig Gilmour has joined UNIFY from Dimension Data to manage the Queensland IdM Practice. Craig has worked in the identity and access management field for a number of years – initially in the financial services sector in the US and more recently at Dimension Data in Queensland. He brings impressive Microsoft, SUN and Novell skills to UNIFY – as well as strengthening our core capacity to advise enterprises on how to manage their security.

For more information contact Mark Goodall at: mark.goodall@unifysolutions.net

Australia's first Identity Management Centre of Excellence in Canberra

Minister for Economic Development, Ted Quinlan MLA, announced today that Microsoft’s newest Certified Security Partner, UNIFY Solutions, would establish an Identity Management Centre of Excellence in Canberra over the next 3 months, and invest over $2.5m in developing and showcasing Microsoft based provisioning and data matching solutions in the Centre over the next 2 years.
“The Government recognises the importance of Identity Management and its emergence as a key element of security systems for organisations both in the public and private sectors. I am very proud to announce that another innovative Australian Developer has chosen Canberra for its Development base,” Mr Quinlan said.
Identity Management is one of the fastest growing focuses for organisations throughout the world as the spotlight falls on the effectiveness and cost of ensuring only authorised access to systems and information from anywhere at anytime.
UNIFY Solutions product development specialises in specific IdM solutions focused on Provisioning and Data Matching functions.  Its clients include federal, state and local governments, corporate and education sector organisations in the ACT, Queensland and South Australia. 
Chairman of UNIFY Solutions, Mr Ian Ferrier, stated that the investment by UNIFY Solutions in the ACT follows commitments made to the ACT Government in response to a Knowledge Fund Commercialisation Grant in 2004.  He also acknowledged the the ACT Government’s foresight in recognising the urgent need for effective Identity Management solutions.
The ACT Centre of Excellence will focus on the further development of:
 
• UNIFYConnect suite of IdM products which are a range of provisioning and synchronisation solutions that are commercially available on multiple vendor based IdM platforms - predominantly Microsoft’s MIIS 2003 and Novell’s NIM2 IdM Platforms;
 
• UNIFYNow product which gives MIIS the real time, event based provisioning capability required for robust enterprise wide IdM solutions; and
 
• UNIFYMatch toolkit which is a powerful business tool which uses MIIS as the basis of an efficient and intelligent real time data cleansing, matching, and merging process that can unlock the value of diversely stored data.
 
For more information contact: mark.goodall@unifysolutions.net

ACTEWAGL selects UNIFY to implement MaXware's MIC

ACTEWAGL have initiated a project to implement the tools and processes required to provide Identity and Access Management (IAM) throughout the organisation. ACTEWAGL has recognised the need to review their IAM requirements with stakeholders, and integrate security functionality within the IT environment based on the use of open standards for authentication, SSO and web access management. Completion of the project will result in improved security, more accurate identity information and improved productivity. The proposed solution fits well with ACTEWAGL’s various systems and integrates well with off-the-shelf and custom solutions and is supportable in the long term.

ACTEWAGL has selected UNIFY Solutions to implement Maxware Identity Centre, the preferred tool.
 The proposed solution provides an easy to use web interface for the administration of identity information including changes to access privileges and personal information. ACTEWAGL’s risk exposure is decreased by ensuring that business processes around identity management are completed – for example, the disablement of all accounts for a specific user upon resignation or retirement from ACTEWAGL.

Automated and consistent business rules will enable ACTEWAGL to better meet its compliance requirements for data availability, integrity and accessibility under various regulatory instruments and be able to verify that to both internal and external auditors. This will be realised through delegated administration, self service capabilities, the in house ability to add other systems to the IAM framework and the establishment of a platform for the implementation of single sign-on. The presence of an authoritative data source for each identity value and the dynamic propagation of this information throughout ACTEWAGL’s systems, following predefined business rules, will ensure improved data integrity. It will also remove the need for ongoing data reconciliation and potential data cleansing.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net ns.net

UNIFYNow for MIIS Registered for Copyright in the US

UNIFYNow has been registered for Copyright in the US.

Microsoft's MIIS is a robust provisioning engine, emerging as the leading component of solid and dependable schedule-based identity management solutions.  One of its major shortcomings for implementation in enterprises has been its inability to transact real time.

UNIFYNow enables MIIS to achieve real time provisioning. As an event engine for MIIS, UNIFYNow manages the events involved in a provisioning solution and triggers MIIS at appropriate event-driven points. With UNIFYNow, you retain the integrity and reliability of an MIIS based solution, while gaining event driven service that provisions your identities and attributes at the time of change.

UNIFYNow has been implemented in two South Australian Government Departments and is scheduled to be implemented at SUNCORP and the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS) in the near future.
UNIFY is the only company promoting a real-time provisioning solution for MIIS. To achieve event driven identity management with MIIS, UNIFYNow is a crucial requirement.

For more information contact Peter Tiernan at: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

SA Water to upgrade CHRIS5 Idm functionality to CHRIS21

SA Water has previously implemented an Identity Management solution utilising UNIFY Solutions' CHRIS5 connector to allow for the CHRIS5 HR application to be the authoritative source of Identity (employee) information for both Active Directory and eDirectory. The solution automated the creation, modification and deletion of user (employee) accounts and associated information via CHRIS5 for eDirectory and Active Directory and potentially, for all applications within SA Water in the longer term.

Subsequent to this initial implementation SA Water has upgraded their HR & Payroll system from CHRIS5 to CHRIS21. To maintain Identity Management functional parity with this upgrade SA Water is now upgrading UNIFY's CHRIS5 Connector with the CHRIS21 Connector.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) broadens IdM approach with UNIFY

The Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) is in the process of consolidating systems within their environment into an enterprise-wide Identity Management (IdM) architecture providing CIT with consistent identity information for all Students, Teachers and Staff.
Ultimately IdM will provide CIT automated role based access and provisioning, including integration with CIT security systems, for -
 
• students depending on their course enrolment,
• teachers, both full time and part time, depending on the courses they are responsible for,
• administrative staff depending on their role within CIT, and
• contractors depending on their role within CIT
• 
UNIFY Solutions is working with CIT to extend the IdM architecture by utilising the Banner Student Management System as an information source that will, in real-time, automatically create, modify and terminate  student accounts including email accounts and proxy access
Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) broadens IdM approach with UNIFY.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net
 

MaxWare teams with UNIFY Solutions

MaXware AS has appointed UNIFY Solutions as sole distributor of its Identity Management products in Australia and New Zealand from 1 May 2005.  Both Tore Wold, CEO of MaXware, and Mark Goodall, Managing Director of UNIFY Solutions believe this relationship offers enhanced value to MaXware customers and partners through the focus of Australia's leading Identity Management organisation on the positioning and support of MaXware technology. 

MaXware and UNIFY Solutions are working closely together with existing customers and partners to ensure a successful and seamless transfer of responsibilities.  All enquires on products, services and support should be directed through telephone number 1300 889 519 or via email to support@unifysolutions.net

For more information contact Terry Kimball at: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

DAIS chose UNIFY Solutions to undertake a Proof of Concept for the provisioning of four key directories in SA Government

SA Department for Administration & Internal Services (DAIS) - Adelaide
To manage their 65,000 identities the South Australian Government has a high dependency on four key directory services: SADirect, SAGEMS, Active Directory and the CHRIS 5 HR environment.  These directories are critical for business functionality, services and information within the whole of government for all government personnel. DAIS chose UNIFY Solutions to undertake a Proof of Concept for the provisioning of four key directories in SA Government:
 
• Active Directory – Whole of Government AD
• SADirect – ADAM based Whole of Government whitepages and self management portal
• SAGEMS – South Australian Exchange environment (managed by EDS using QUEST tools).
• Frontier Software's CHRIS5 HR – Whole of Government HR application
 
Provisioning will be based upon MIIS2003 and use the Microsoft Management Agents for the AD and SADirect (ADAM) directories. Provisioning to the SAGEMS environment will be via the QUEST tool set currently used by EDS and UNIFY will develop and implement a custom Management Agent for QUEST based upon its UNIFYConnect platform.
The solution is unique in that none of the directories are an authoritative source for identities and the design within the Vision and Scope allows for this through the use of a custom built moderation application that is part of the overall Identity Management solution based upon MIIS2003.

For more information contact: peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

UNIFY Solutions levels the playing field for MIIS 2003

UNIFY Solutions today announced the release of its UNIFYNow Event Manager.
UNIFYNow Event Manager facilitates the management and triggering of event based data flow for Microsoft's MIIS 2003 product.

UNIFY Chief Technology Officer Peter Tiernan described the product as significant for MIIS as "...until now it has been at a disadvantage against competitors because of its inability to meet user requirements for real time transactions."

The UNIFYNow Event Manager consists of two separate applications. The first is an engine which automatically processes events, requests and scheduled processes relating to run profiles for Microsoft's MIIS 2003 Identity Management and Provisioning product (MIIS). The second application is a management console for the collection and management of information required by the engine. These two applications are called the UNIFYNow Event Management Engine and UNIFYNow Event Management Console respectively .
 
For more information contact Peter Tiernan at :peter.tiernan@unifysolutions.net

Microsoft supports commercialisation of Aurion and CHRIS connectors

UNIFY Solutions today announced agreements with Microsoft for the commercialization of its MIIS based connectors for Aurion Corporation's HR and Payroll application, and Frontier Software's CHRIS 21 HR and Payroll application.

Both Microsoft and UNIFY Solutions have recognized the significant penetration of these applications into key industry sectors (including Federal, State and local Government, Education, Health and Finance) and have committed to providing quickly deployable provisioning solutions for their users.

UNIFY Managing Director Mark Goodall described the partnership as ".valuable for organizations using Aurion or CHRIS who previously could not access effective provisioning solutions from Microsoft".

For more information contact: mark.goodall@unifysolutions.net

Gold Coast City Council selects UNIFY Solutions to implement its CHRIS 21 Provisioning Solution

UNIFY Solutions today announced that it has been selected to upgrade the Gold Coast City Council's CHRIS 5 provisioning solution to CHRIS 21. GCCC chose UNIFY Solutions to install UNIFY's CHRIS21 Connector for DirXML taking into account work previously undertaken by UNIFY architects on the original CHRIS5 Connector for the GCCC.

UNIFY Solutions' National Sales Manager Terry Kimball noted "the continuing business that the GCCC is providing the team that implemented the original CHRIS 5 solution" and thanked GCCC for its confidence.

UNIFY's CHRIS21 Connector for DirXML allows for the CHRIS21 environment to be the authoritative source of identity (employee and/or contractor) information for the automatic creation, modification and disablement (or termination) of an identity's accounts across relevant disparate services and applications - based upon pre-defined business rules.

The GCCC Identity Management environment comprises the MetaDirectory, all Connector implementations, and all style sheets associated with these connectors. A connector and associated style sheets are used to synchronise data between the MetaDirectory and the GCCC production Novell directory. The production Novell directory is also based on eDir 8.7 and is installed on NetWare 5.1 servers and W2K servers. The connector is the NDSToNDS connector included with the Novell product DirXML 1.1a.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

Aurion Corporation signs MOU with UNIFY Solutions

Unify Solutions today announced it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Aurion Corporation to form a partnership for the purpose of extending the value of the Aurion's Human Resources and Payroll Software by the development, promotion and marketing of identity management products and solutions.

UNIFY and Aurion have agreed to use their best efforts to bring together their respective capabilities and resources to develop opportunities around Aurion through the ongoing development of UNIFY's commercially available connecters and drivers utilising the Microsoft MIIS and Novell NIM2 IdM engines.
UNIFY Solutions Managing Director Mark Goodall outlined that "UNIFY would work with Microsoft and Novell for further worldwide development, promotion and implementation of IdM solutions based on Aurion, actively promote Aurion as part of UNIFY's Identity Management offerings, and provide awareness and education of the benefits of Identity Management (IdM) and how IdM integrates with and extends the functionality of the Aurion Human Resources and Payroll Software".
UNIFY Solutions believes Aurion has an outstanding future based on innovations such as its Employee Self Services module (ESS).

For more information contact: mark.goodall@unifysolutions.net

Department of Environment and Heritage contracts UNIFY Solutions to plan Directory and Single Sign-On Strategy

UNIFY Solutions today announced that it has been selected by the Department of the Environment and Heritage to carry out a requirements analysis and assess options for a single authentication/single sign on model for their major departmental IT services. The Department has a range of IT services that are not underpinned by a single authentication facility. The result is that staff need to remember several username/password combinations in order to use these information services. This is inefficient for both users and systems managers.

UNIFY is assisting the Department to achieve a single sign on, or at least single authentication point for all or most of their services.

For more information contact: jason.didio@unifysolutions.net

Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) implements Identity Management and web services with Novell eDirectory

UNIFY Solutions today announced its appointment by CIT to implement Novell's Nsure Identity Manager solution to synchronise real time user and group information between the existing internal network environment and the existing web based servers and services.  Through the use of standards including XML and LDAP all user accounts for both internal and web based services are administered from one point, thereby streamlining processes and improving security.

UNIFY Solutions National Sales Manager Terry Kimball stated that "the CIT is a perfect example of the value of Identity Management solutions because of the volume and volatility of its user base". He expressed appreciation for the trust placed in the UNIFY team by CIT which has engaged UNIFY in several related projects over the past two years.

The Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) has over 20,000 registered students who now all have unique identifiers for individuals and groups achieved by using UNIFY Solutions consulting services to assist with the management of user accounts and directory services.

CIT offers students secure authentication to their web based education systems and facilitates, and eases the IT administrative burden through Identity Management.

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net

Frontier Software announces UNIFY Solutions provisioning solution for CHRIS 5 and CHRIS 21

Frontier Software's National Client Services Manager, Maurice Boyd, announced this week that Frontier Software and UNIFY Solutions have cemented a partnership which brings a full range of Identity Management services for CHRIS 5 and CHRIS 21.

In a letter to Frontier customers, Maurice advised that UNIFY Solutions has developed CHRIS Connectors and Agents for both the Microsoft (MIIS 2003) and Novell (DirXML, Nsure) Identity Management offerings, and promoted its sales and implementation partnership with Maxware.
He recognized that Frontier customers, without compromising IT plans and costings, can achieve quick wins in reducing administrative costs and improving security. Specifically, UNIFY Solutions can quickly implement fundamental provisioning solutions for both CHRIS 5 and CHRIS 21.

 
UNIFY Managing Director Mark Goodall praised "the success of Frontier Software in winning over 1500 sites against all competition and across all industry segments", and expressed his pleasure in "being able to enhance the functionality of a truly Australian success story".

For more information contact: terry.kimball@unifysolutions.net