HP in a deal with Ping Identity

BANGALORE: Ping Identity Corporation and HP today announced that they are working to accelerate development of the Ping Identity SourceID Federation Platform in order to provide enterprise customers a more efficient and secure way to manage identity information.

SourceID, the leading open source project focused on multi-protocol identity federation, provides companies with the foundation for extended enterprise initiatives and cross-company security by enabling identity federation via multiple open protocols such as SAML, Liberty Alliance and WS-Federation.

As a founding member of the Liberty Alliance, a consortium committed to developing an open standard for federated network identity, HP also plans to use the Ping Identity SourceID Federation Platform to build a tightly integrated Liberty-derived solution into its HP OpenView Select Access identity management software.

This software, the first to market with SAML support, incorporates the leading industry standards for identity management. SourceID support will give HP customers an integrated solution for federating user identities and engaging partners with a consistent user authorization and access control system, thus enabling increased access to information across Web-based businesses and services.

With the security market expected to grow to a $45 billion in 2006, manageability, automation and ease of use are key drivers for customers. Internal identity management, and now the management of identities as they move between organizations, has become an area of increasing focus as enterprises continue to work to accommodate Internet business transactions, remote access users, mobile networking and different modes of access.

"Both companies will benefit from an acceleration of SourceID capabilities: HP through software, hardware and professional services opportunities connected with federation, and Ping Identity through increased demand for our federated identity Web services," said Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity Corporation. "Combining Ping Identity's focus and expertise in identity federation with HP's vast development resources is well timed, as we're seeing a real increase in demand for an industrial grade, cross-protocol solution."

As part of its Adaptive Enterprise strategy to dynamically link business processes with IT, HP is working to help enterprises effectively secure and manage user access to information across hardware, software, network resources, application servers, enterprise applications and Web portals within an organization and across organizations via business-to-business transactions.

"Security is a strong part of the HP Adaptive Enterprise vision, which is focused on enabling companies to develop an IT infrastructure that can respond to and work closely with its business priorities," said Tony Redmond, vice president and chief technology officer, HP Services. "HP's work with leading solution partners, such as Ping Identity in the area of identity management, and our strong commitment to open industry standards like Liberty Alliance, help HP deliver the deep, interoperable, end-to-end solutions our enterprise customers are increasingly demanding."

Ping Identity's multi-protocol federation platform, SourceID, combined with its focus on resolving the legal, business and operational issues of federation through the PingID Network and managed Web services, is well aligned with HP's objectives to provide a full suite of hardware, software and consulting and integration services to this emerging market.