Likewise Software, formerly Centeris, delivering authentication and audit solutions for mixed networks, has announced the availability of Likewise Open Spring ‘08, an open source offering that provides fast and easy integration of Linux, UNIX and Mac systems with Microsoft’s (News - Alert) Active Directory.

 

Before this release, the company supported only a few platforms but now, it supports virtually all non-Windows enterprise platforms such as Linux, UNIX and Mac Platforms.

 

Barry Crist, CEO of Likewise Software said, “With the support of the open source community, Likewise Open continues to evolve extremely fast. Users have been asking for more platforms and today we are pleased to answer their requests within weeks with the additional support of Macintosh, UNIX and all the enterprise Linux flavors. Admins can now manage authentication through Microsoft Active Directory on virtually any machine.”

 

With Likewise Open, companies can get a proven enterprise solution for authentication with Active Directory. For the modern day company, a number of challenges with authentication across multiple platforms can be solved with Likewise Open.

 

Likewise Open will start being distributed next month through major Linux technology partners, including Novell (openSUSE), Red Hat (News - Alert) (RHEL), and Canonical (Ubuntu).

 

All versions of Likewise Open Spring ’08 are available now for free download at www.likewisesoftware.com.

 

Starting with a 10 incident support pack for $2,500 per year, a variety of support offerings are available for Likewise Open. Also, if companies that download Likewise Open Spring ’08 need features such as group policy, audit and reporting, they can quickly and easily upgrade to Likewise Enterprise.

 

Likewise makes authentication of non-Windows systems to AD easily installable and freely available. Likewise Open is fast becoming the defacto solution for secure authentication of UNIX, Linux and Mac systems with AD.