Likewise Software is a privately-held company that provides audit and authentication solutions designed to improve security, reduce operational costs, and help demonstrate regulatory compliance for enterprises with mixed network environments. Its product, Likewise Open, which has been certified by the company to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is an open-source enterprise-class solution that addresses the authentication needs of organizations with heterogeneous network infrastructures, by easily and quickly joining virtually all enterprise platforms to common directories such as Microsoft Active Directory. Likewise Open is a great starting point for companies that are grappling with homegrown solutions to solve their authentication challenges. Likewise's premier offering, Likewise Enterprise, which has been certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, provides enterprises with significant added value by addressing the authentication, audit, and reporting needs of companies running multiple operating systems in their networks. By providing an easy upgrade path for customers that have installed Likewise Open, Likewise Enterprise allows enterprises to use group policies to manage their mixed environments as well as their audit capabilities. Located in Bellevue, Washington, Likewise currently has 50 employees.
Likewise was founded to create solutions dedicated to improving the management, interoperability, and - most importantly - the security of Windows, Linux, UNIX and Mac systems in enterprises with mixed network environments. With the growing popularity of Linux within companies large and small due to its robustness, ease of use, security, and low cost, Likewise needed to certify its application on Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the No. 1 Linux distribution in the world. "This was critical because our customers want to manage the entire diversity of their platforms to improve security and lower overall costs," said Rosie Hausler, vice president of marketing for Likewise Software. "Since an increasing number of them hope to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux and still manage everything from their existing legacy directory - generally Microsoft Active Directory - we knew this would provide a great benefit to our customers."
Red Hat was an obvious choice to include in the platforms Likewise chose to support in its initial releases of both Likewise Open and Likewise Enterprise in December 2007. "Red Hat is the open source leader so partnering with Red Hat was an easy decision for us." said Hausler.
Users can download all the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-supported versions of Likewise Open directly from the Likewise Website and use it for connecting 118 platforms to Microsoft Active Directory. Likewise recently completed a deployment at a major online retailer that was driven by Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance and included 700 Linux and Unix servers - the majority of them running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. "We were able to deploy in three weeks, which helped the customer pass its PCI audit and get more desirable transaction fees from credit card companies," said Hausler. "The fact that we supported the customer environment of Red Hat as well as AIX and still allowed all 700 non-Windows servers to leverage their legacy directory was key to the deal."
Because Likewise chose to partner closely with Red Hat, Likewise Open is a compelling solution for authenticating Linux and Unix systems to Microsoft Active Directory.
Since Likewise is located in Bellevue, Washington, approximately half of its technical team came from Microsoft. "We struggled a bit with the decision to make our core technology open source, but this has been by far the best business decision we have made since the inception of our company," said Hausler.
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