CSS Announces Launch of Forefront Advanced System Toolset (FAST)

Microsoft Identity & Security Partner of the Year introduces solution set designed to help drive identity management projects significantly faster and more affordably than previously possible

SAN FRANCISCO, RSA CONFERENCE – February 17, 2011. Certified Security Solutions, Inc. (CSS) announced today the launch of a new suite of software solutions built to support Microsoft’s Forefront Identity Manager (FIM). CSS’ “Forefront Advanced System Toolset” (FAST) contains a variety of utilities, software components, and custom FIM management agents designed to make FIM-based identity management deployments faster while increasing FIM’s capabilities. CSS’ FAST maximizes the value organizations can gain from Microsoft’s Forefront Identity Manager and the products they already own.

“We’re big fans of FIM and the territory it stakes out in the identity management marketplace,” says CSS CEO Kevin von Keyserling. “By adding FAST to the equation, large enterprises are realizing significant benefits in terms of cost and time savings. FAST helps speed up FIM deployment while bringing numerous additional capabilities.”

CSS’ FAST includes:

• FAST Certificate Management Companion. Extend the capabilities of FIM Certificate Manager by overseeing all certificates issued from a PKI through the Certificate Management Companion. Create customized notices that automate and email detailed reports on all your certificates, such as SSL certificates, certificates for computers, RADIUS servers, key recovery agents, and network devices.
• FAST SID History Management Agent. Eliminate the manual steps of transferring your SID history during an Active Directory migration by using FIM and FAST SID History Management Agent.
• FAST Job Manager. Manage and maintain your complicated synch procedures and ordering through a user-friendly portal instead of a collection of batch scripts. With FAST Job Manager, you get precise control over the timing and relative order of FIM synch cycles from within the FIM SharePoint portal.
• FAST Request Web Part. Users and site administrators can now submit requests right from their SharePoint site for Windows group memberships. Give your site administrators the ability to manage access to pages from within SharePoint and FIM rather than having to go through administrators or help desk.
• FAST SPML Management Agent. A Custom Management Agent used to provision users and manage passwords to third-party Identity Management systems or to Cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that support the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) standard.
• FAST Certificate-Based Provisioning. Leverage the high-assurance source of user credentials and information that Common Access Cards (CAC) provide. FAST Certificate-Based Provisioning is a secure, scalable way to take the information from the CAC and use it to seed an identity management provisioning process. Users authenticate with a smart card, connecting to a portal that gathers the information from their certificate and uses it to kick off a FIM provisioning workflow. FAST Certificate-Based Provisioning eliminates the delays caused by the manual workflow routing process and manual provisioning process.

The components are sold individually, but can be combined with services or licensed as a group if desired. In addition, the suite will not be static. “We will continue to expand our stable of FIM tools over time,” says Rex Wheeler, CSS’ Identity Management Practice Lead. “These solutions have grown out of the repeatable solutions that we have been implementing for our customers for years. We’re thrilled to formalize our toolset and make it available to a wider audience.”

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