SAN JOSE, CA. -- July 24, 2006 — Setting a new standard for network security in today’s regulatory business environment, Apere, Inc. today introduced IMAG, the first Identity Managed Access Gateway to integrate Identity Management (IdM) and Information Access technologies in a single security appliance. The seamless integration of these two critical technologies provides a revolutionary security appliance designed to help IT management improve productivity by reducing the cost and complexity of an identity management deployment, while enhancing network security to meet dynamic regulatory and compliance requirements.  As a result of innovative connector technology, auto discovery capabilities and patent pending access control mechanism, Apere’s IMAG eliminates the traditional policy management IT burden with unique enterprise wide cleansing of identity access information as well as centralized provisioning of information and network access that protects sensitive corporate data and proprietary intellectual property at an affordable cost for the mid-tier enterprise.

“IT management, especially in the midmarket, doesn’t often have access to the resources needed to deal with the rising cost and complexity of managing and provisioning identify management and network access control -- yet they have the same critical priorities as large enterprises for protecting confidential corporate data and intellectual property,” said Scott Crawford, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. “Apere is addressing this challenge by integrating essential identity management, and access control functionality, as well as application and network user provisioning in a single solution.  This makes these capabilities more accessible to the midmarket in a new and innovative way.”

IMAG is the first in a line of turnkey appliances developed by Apere designed to permit or deny access to the network and business critical applications based on auto-policies created from identity access information contained throughout the enterprise. This identity access information exists within disparate identity stores, where each store can be connected to a different application, business division or department. The rising number of mergers and acquisitions have made this issue even more complex because two or more completely separate networks need to be integrated as well.  With each network containing its own set of disparate identity stores, combined with the growing pressures of regulatory compliance and network security, the challenge of integrating all identity information into one single universal reference is becoming an increasingly complex, yet critical issue to solve. 

However, Apere’s IMAG now addresses these provisioning, reconciling and reporting problems in a single solution.  Its unique auto discovery capabilities and access control mechanisms automatically solve the problem of provisioning new and departing users on the network without adding a policy management nightmare for IT personnel.  At the same time, IMAG addresses the potential security threats associated with controlling access from less trusted areas of the network, such as conference rooms, open cubicles/offices and wireless connections.

“The unique ability of IMAG to automatically create and manage access policies based on all sources of identity information in the network, allows an enterprise to protect sensitive data, including customer’s financial information, without expending IT resources for manual network access provisioning and policy management,” said Mark Rhodes-Ousley, CISSP, author of Network Security, The Complete Reference (McGraw-Hill, 2003) and information security architect for a mid-sized mortgage banker.

Enabling enterprises to meet changing regulatory requirements and protect corporate assets, IMAG provides a centralized gateway that cleanses, provisions and reports access rights based on all individual identity access rights, not just network addresses or network directories. IMAG locates, consolidates and reconciles identity access information throughout the enterprise, then creates a central location to generate, revoke and freeze identities throughout all applications and directories.  IMAG’s patent pending technology uses this identity information to permit or deny traffic from devices based on who is using that device and what permissions they have throughout the network. 

“Before we began development of IMAG, we conducted hundreds of interviews with a wide range of network users, including IT managers and administrators at companies of varying size,” said Ram Jayam, founder and CEO of Apere.  “We discovered that these organizations, especially in the mid-market, were actively looking for a cost effective way to manage users efficiently and accurately while granting or denying these users access to business critical network resources.  We listened very carefully, and feel confident that IMAG is the first and only solution on the market today to deliver the enterprise-class functionality needed by these organizations to maximize IT productivity, improve communications, ensure network security, and facilitate regulatory compliance requirements, at a price they can easily afford.”

IMAG’s unique integration capabilities are enabled by the IMAG Connector Factory, a subscription service that builds native connectors to the majority of applications within the enterprise that use common identity and authentication resources such as Microsoft’s Active Directory as well as LDAP, Samba, RADIUS and common database formats. By monitoring identity interactions with IT assets, the IMAG Connector Factory is able to learn the sequence of interactions necessary to integrate with the identity and authentication capabilities of various access targets. This gives the IMAG high extensibility for its identity capabilities, significantly lowering bars to integration and eliminating the need for modifications to IT resources. Connectors are available specifically for integration with leading healthcare, financial, and enterprise resource management assets.

IMAG Identity Management Features:

• Identity Cleanse: IMAG utilizes common and proprietary tools to locate all identity stores.  Leveraging patent pending auto discovery technology, IMAG determines the network configuration and application stores. Upon creating a complete list of identity stores and determining administrative access, the IMAG consolidates and reconciles identities including orphaned accounts, into one clean authoritative list for ease of management.
• Identity Provision: IMAG provides a centralized point for creating and revoking user’s identity and access information. By centralizing this function, the creation of new user access is complete and minimizes the administrative burden. And, when a user needs to be deleted, there is an assurance that all rights have been purged, thus meeting security and regulatory compliance requirements. Workflow processing improves productivity and allows existing company processes to be maintained but integrated and placing password resets safely in the hands of the end user can save enterprises up to $51 to $147 per year per employee.
• Identity Report: Reporting enables an enterprise to establish security or regulatory compliance. The IMAG’s one button compliance reports provide a simple, consolidated view into identity access information to validate security posture and compliance with regulations such as GLBA, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc. Dashboards enable management and administration to quickly determine the health of their identity based security.

IMAG Access Control Features:

• Identity Firewall: The IMAG is a dynamic identity-based packet filtering firewall. Rules for access are based on the permissions within the identity stores that already reside in the network and applications. Applying the information gathered on identities and their access rights, the IMAG controls access based on valid identity rights, enabling enterprises to restrict users and their devices only to that information which they have the right to access. Because these access rights are pulled directly from the identity stores, IMAG eliminates the time consuming task of creating policies or rules.
• Universal Access Control: Auto VLAN Provisioning enables users to roam to another VLAN and still access resources within the users’ home VLAN. This is especially useful for conference rooms, travelers’ cubicles and wireless networks.
• Adaptive Access Control: The ability to fit into any network deployment scenario requires interaction with network authentication mechanisms, which enable the positive identification of users in addition to connecting their identities to their access device.

 Apere Services and Support
Apere offers a wide array of professional services which are delivered through Apere’s world class Team Partners.  The services offered include Identity Risk Assessment, the Custom Connector Factory, and IMAG Integration Services.  The company also offers toll free 24 x 7 support for one year with each IMAG purchase.

IMAG Pricing and Availability
IMAG is now available through Apere’s world class Team Partners.  MSRP starts at US $15,000.  Contact Apere for details.

About Apere, Inc.
Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Apere was founded in 2004 by successful serial entrepreneurs who leveraged their experience and expertise in the security, IC design and software markets to create the industry’s first Identity Managed Access Gateway designed to address the security of sensitive data while significantly reducing the management burden placed on IT staff. The IMAG product line is available exclusively through Apere’s Team Partners who are certified security experts with the knowledge and resources needed to solve enterprise security issues with the IMAG security appliance platform. For more information, visit the company website at www.apere.com, contact Apere via phone at 877-875-9476 or via email at contact@apere.com.

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