Atlassian Acquires Authentisoft Single Sign-on User Management
September 7, 2006 6:06 AM
Finding a good single sign-on solution has been a goal for many organisations looking to simplify user management. Tomorrow on the business wires we'll be officially announcing the acquisition of Minneapolis-based Authentisoft, a company that creates IDX, a single sign-on Java EE solution.
Over the next few months, we'll be working on the application to make it more Atlassian-like, however today IDX is fully-functional and works natively with JIRA and Confluence.
We're even happier to announce that Justen Stepka, one of Authentisoft's founders and senior developer extraordinaire, is moving to Sydney to continue developing IDX full-time. We invite you to read the full press release and check out Authentisoft yourselves. Stay tuned for additional announcements over the next few months.
Sydney, Australia (Business Wire) September 7, 2006 - Atlassian Software Systems today announced that it has acquired Authentisoft, a Minneapolis-based software company that specialises in application and security technologies.
Founded in 2005, Authentisoft produces IDX, a single sign-on Java EE solution hailed by users for its simplified controls for centralizing authentication, authorization and administrative tasks. IDX enables IT administrators and application developers to quickly integrate and deploy single sign-on infrastructures using popular directory servers such as Microsoft Active Directory and Apple OS X Open Directory.
"IDX is a great fit for our customers, our products, and our company," said Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and CEO at Atlassian. "It takes away the pain associated with managing authentication in any-size IT environment. With IDX, people can bridge together as many web-based applications as they like, including JIRA and Confluence of course, and manage single sign-on with brilliant simplicity."
"Atlassian was a perfect fit for us because they are renowned for building and advocating for J2EE products. IDX will have a better opportunity for reaching global markets," said Justen Stepka, co-founder at Authentisoft. Justen will be joining the Atlassian development team in Sydney to continue development and support of IDX while Authentisoft co-founder Farzad Freshtekhu will continue working on a new undisclosed venture.
Atlassian currently offers two products−Atlassian JIRA, a professional issue tracker, and Atlassian Confluence, an enterprise wiki−that help organisations collaborate, improve decision making, and manage projects. IDX is currently available for evaluation and purchase through visiting the Authentisoft website at www.authentisoft.com.
About Atlassian
Atlassian Software Systems is an innovative Australian software company providing enterprise software solutions to the world's leading organisations. Recently recognised as Australia's fastest-growing software company by BRW magazine, Atlassian has over 4,000 customers in more than 60 countries, and has offices in Sydney and San Francisco. Atlassian JIRA, professional issue tracking software, and Atlassian Confluence, an enterprise wiki, help organisations collaborate, manage content, and make better business decisions. Atlassian's mission is to build a different kind of software company - one that listens to client needs, values innovation in development and solves customer problems with brilliant simplicity. Atlassian's commitment to legendary service provides consistent, high quality support for all their customers.
Copyright © 2009 Atlassian Pty Ltd.
4 Comment(s)
Does the product include kerberos/SPNEGO integration? If not, are there any plans for atlassian to add it?
By Mike at September 14, 2006 5:49 AM
From Justen:
I would say that yes, we will eventually offer kerberos based authentication for clients to authenticate verses the security framework. The current roadmap does not have this specifically stubbed out but over the next few weeks we'll be hammering out something more specific.
Currently the IDX framework supports a generic Credentials object that can be adapted to support any number of authentication approaches such as three-factor authentication.
By Jon Silvers at September 14, 2006 8:04 AM
This is embarrassing. Jira/Confluence customers have been asking for proper directory integration for these products for three years, and the best Atlassian can do is buy a third-party product and *sell* it to us. I don't need a new product, I already have a directory, and I don't intend to port off of it. JXplorer is just fine for administration. Jira/Confluence have password management for local authentication built in, and with an extra 150 lines of code, it could be set up to update the userPassword attribute in the LDAP store.
By Brian Topping at February 10, 2007 4:56 AM
Brian,
Confluence supports LDAP out of the box (a high level of integration - all usernames and groups are pulled from one or multiple LDAP repositories). JIRA has LDAP support, but less integrated (ie just passwords are pulled from LDAP).
Your specific issue (using JIRA / Confluence to update the passwords in LDAP) is something that we haven't really been requested before. Most of our corporate customers have their own user management systems, built into LDAP (or whatever back end they have).
Crowd is intended for those people who either don't have that back-end LDAP system, or want simple tools to manipulate it.
In no way are we abandoning or otherwise decreasing our support for LDAP in our current products. If you talk to our support staff, or our developers, you will know that LDAP integration takes a very large portion of their time.
I'll call you today to chat further about this.
Cheers,
Scott
By Scott Farquhar at February 14, 2007 3:51 AM