December 4th, 2007
Centeris opens Active Directory to open source, Likewise
Centeris has renamed itself Likewise Software and launched Likewise Open, aimed at making major Linux distributions “first class citizens” in Microsoft Active Directory systems.
CEO Barry Crist told ZDNet that Likewise Open will integrate users with Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Linux and Novell’s SUSE Linux into Microsoft Active Directory systems, something enterprise system managers have long sought.
Some “98% of the Fortune 1000 uses Active Directory, and over 86% of organizations with over 100 employees have a mixed network,” he explained.
Likewise Open is the “authentication piece” for adding Linux machines to Active Directory. Likewise is also announcing Version 4 of its Likewise Enterprise, which “has tools for the Linux Administrator, for the first time, to manage Active Directory.”
Likewise is based in Bellevue, Washington, just a few miles up the road from Microsoft’s offices in Redmond, and Crist says the company keeps an employee in Microsoft’s “Building 25″ on its main campus.
So this is very much in keeping with Microsoft’s strategy of allowing simpler integration for owners of “mixed” Linux and Windows systems, Crist said.”Microsoft is one of our partners,” he added.
While there are always suspicions when third parties enable Microsoft integration, of Microsoft “taking it back” by changing the standards on which the integration is based, Crist has no worries on that score.
“The infrastructure this is based on, RPC, would cost Microsoft pain to change, just as much as it would us. This piece is fairly stable.”
What about LDAP, the Internet directory standard, I asked.
“We looked at lots of technologies, but first we listened to our enterprise customers. They want to leverage technology in place, and Active Directory has a powerful policy engine. LDAP doesn’t have that. We don’t take a stand. We just go where the customers are.”
That, however, is the other side of the coin here. Microsoft is allowing integration with Active Directory, but over time it hopes LDAP will wither due to a shortage of competitive enterprise features.
If that is to change, it’s up to open source programmers to change it.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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