News & comment tagged ‘sso plugin’
● SSO Plugin for Jive Software
posted by John B on 31st March 2013
We are pleased to announce the release of SSO Plugin for Jive Software, a leading social business platform. Jive powers well known websites such as BMC Communities and is available for both on premises and hosted solutions.
SSO Plugin provides the first quality SSO solution for Jive Software, including popular features such as a mature cross-platform Integrated Windows Authentication module, native CA SiteMinder and RSA Access Manager support and SAML integration to popular Identity Providers such as Microsoft ADFS2, Ping Federate, etc.
The Jive Software integration is available in the SSO Plugin 3.6.7 release.
● SSO Plugin newsletter
posted by Danny Kellett on 13th March 2013
Welcome to a newsletter from Java System Solutions. In this newsletter you will find recent SSO Plugin product developments, revised pricing and feedback from our customers.
Product developments
We're always working to improve SSO Plugin and here is some recent product news.
SSO Plugin for CA Clarity PPM
We're pleased to announce that organisations using CA Clarity PPM can now enjoy SSO Plugin, providing seamless access to, in many cases, everyone in the organisation who has to login daily to track their time on project tasks.
This integration is part of the SSO Plugin Authentication Service and requires an extra license for existing users. Please contact JSS for more details.
BMC AR System 'authenticate unregistered users' and SSO
Authenticate Unregistered Users is a long standing feature of the BMC AR System. This feature is used to authenticate users that do not exist in the User form while maintaining a list of users outside the AR System, such as Active Directory.
While SSO Plugin has many features to allow customers to decide how to create accounts within the User form when one doesn't exist, there are some customers who still need to have an option for those whom remain without a User account.
SSO Plugin 3.6.7 introduces a feature to allow users who do not have an account in the User form to be authenticated via SSO and then gain access to the application. As per BMC design, these users will not be assigned a license and will not be assigned to any groups.
We'd like to think Misi Mladoniczky, ARSlist's "most valued poster" (2011), for this great feature suggestion. Check out Misi's range of products.
SAML IDP initiated login
The SSO Plugin SAML support continues to mature and now offers Identity Provider initiated logins and SAML decryption.
SSO Plugin end of life dates
The SSO Plugin product has evolved many times since the initial release in 2006. We have therefore decided to phase out support for versions prior to 3.1 on 31st December 2013, and versions prior to 3.5 on 31st December 2014.
We've made this decision because the newer versions of the product are of a higher quality, with improved features and reduced administration, and hence we'd like to encourage customers to upgrade. Customers subscribing to the JSS support service can receive assisted upgrades as part of the service.
Of course, we'll never decline a support issue due to a version being out of support, but we'll encourage you to upgrade by explaining how the newer releases could have avoided the support issue.
If you have any concerns about this statement, please contact us.
Security tip for BMC AR System users
We see a lot of Mid Tier deployments and have noticed that the Mid Tier configuration password is almost never changed from the default value, arsystem. This poses a security risk, particularly when running a Mid Tier on the Internet - it doesn't take long to find a few public Mid Tiers with the default administration password.
SSO Plugin 3.6.7 displays a warning on the status page when the default password is set, so if you haven't changed your Mid Tier administration password, why not change it now?
Also, change the default AR System database password from AR#Admin# to something else.
SSO Plugin pricing
We've developed a range of pricing for small installations, typically where there are a small number of AR System fixed/floating licenses and a single production AR System server. Please contact us for more details on this new competitive pricing.
Feedback from our customers
We believe that customer feedback is a key measure of a company's ability to support customers. Here is a quote we recently received from BMC customer Yossi Segev (Comverse):
"I would like to thank the JSS team for the incredible effort they put into helping us install the JSS AR System SSO Plugin.
The support availability, providing me with a webex during your Christmas day, and quality was amazing! One of the best companies with whom I've ever had the chance to work.
Thanks from the bottom of my heart."
John Baker commented:
"I was 'on call' and had to negotiate a delay to our family Christmas dinner, and a deal was struck when I offered to do the washing up!"
For more information on our products and services, please visit the JSS website at http://www.javasystemsolutions.com.
● BMC AR System 8.1
posted by Danny Kellett on 5th March 2013
We can confirm that SSO Plugin 3.6.6 supports BMC AR System / ITSM 8.1.
● SSO Plugin for CA Clarity PPM
posted by John B on 9th January 2013
The SSO Plugin product has been integrated with CA Clarity PPM and is included within the SSO Plugin Authentication Service, available for download today.
There are no complicated integration steps: simply make a couple of modifications in the Clarity administration interface; apply a patch to the Clarity application and configure SSO Plugin to integrate with the SSO service (ie Active Directory, SAML, etc).
● Product end of life support dates
posted by John B on 5th January 2013
The SSO Plugin product has evolved many times since the initial release in 2006. We have therefore decided to phase out support for versions prior to 3.1 on 31st December 2013, and versions prior to 3.5 on 31st December 2014.
We've made this decision because the newer versions of the product are of a higher quality, with improved features and reduced administration, and hence we'd like to encourage customers to upgrade. Customers subscribing to the JSS support service can receive assisted upgrades as part of the service.
Of course, we'll never decline a support issue due to a version being out of support, but we'll encourage you to upgrade by explaining how the newer releases could have avoided the support issue.
If you have any concerns about this statement, please contact us.
● SSO Plugin 3.6.0 release
posted by John B on 1st January 2013
The latest stable release of SSO Plugin 3.6.0, is now available on our website. It contains many new features and replaces SSO Plugin 3.5 as our recommended production release.
● SSO Plugin for BMC Mid Tier
posted by John B on 26th December 2012
We've updated the video walk-through for the 3.6 version of SSO Plugin.
Sadly, the Windows native NTLM functionality, ie sign in to ITSM without logging in when logged into a Windows domain, did not make it into the video. However, the video is still relevant for all installations.
● SSO Plugin newsletter
posted by John B on 26th November 2012
Welcome to a newsletter from Java System Solutions. In this newsletter you will find recent SSO Plugin product developments, partner news, and feedback from SSO Plugin clients.
Product developments
We're always working to improve SSO Plugin and here is some recent product news.
More SAML support: SSO Plugin for Symphony Identity Federation Manager
SSO Plugin has been verified against another SAML implementation, Symphony Identity Federation Manager. As with all SAML IDPs, the specification had been "interpreted" and development work was required to integrate Symphony with the BMC and HP web clients.
JSS worked closely with BMC partner Maryville Technologies, and consultant Jerry Shea, to implement a solution in just a few days where BMC had quoted three months.
Jerry Shea commented:
"We would be lost on our SAML SSO Remedy integration without the Java Systems Solutions SSO product and support!"
Danny Kellett commented:
"We understand that customers can't wait three months for an SSO solution. While we recognise BMC produce a fantastic workflow engine, the above quote demonstrates with authentication and security requirements, you need the specific experts with the right product."
More Kinetic support
SSO Plugin is already available for Kinetic Request and can now be integrated with Kinetic Calendar. Contact Kinetic for more information.
More BMC support
SSO Plugin is available for BMC AR System version 8. With no proven and modern out of the box SSO support in AR System 8, SSO Plugin is the obvious choice for BMC customers who want a solution that works, backed by support from experts in single-sign on technologies.
Improvements to Integrated Windows Authentication
Previous versions of SSO Plugin required a computer (not user) account in the Active Directory to decode NTLM tokens. Version 3.6 of SSO Plugin, now available on our website in beta form, contains a new integration option for instances running on a Windows server where the local computer account is re-used. There's no requirement for computer accounts and configuration is vastly simplified.
Computer accounts are still required when SSO Plugin is running on Unix platforms.
Integrate HP Service Manager with SAP Business Objects
The user synchronisation features available between BMC ITSM and Analytics, are now available between HP Service Manager and SAP Business Objects. No longer does the administrator need to manage the Business Objects user repository. We've made a video of this functionality.
SSO Plugin 3.6: feature highlights
We're pleased to announce that SSO Plugin version 3.6 is available to download with many new features including improved functionality to raise incidents when a user has no SSO access, and self-service access to BMC ITSM.
Please take a few minutes to watch the new ITSM registration and ITSM raise incident videos.
You may also wish to browse the release notes.
SSO Plugin for SAP Business Objects
We've been asked to provide a standalone SSO Plugin integration for SAP Business Objects with no dependency on BMC or HP ITSM. This has been provided as part of the SSO Plugin 3.6 Authentication Service product, available to download today.
SSO for BMC Mid Tier webservices
We're conducting a survey to whether you'd like to see SSO for BMC AR System webservices, but given each implementation will differ in some way, we'd like your feedback to whether this would be a useful addition to the SSO Plugin product. Please contact support@javasystemsolutions.com with your feedback.
Feedback from our customers
We believe customer service is one of the elements to the popularity of our solutions and company. Here are some quotes we've received from BMC customers:
When offering to deal with a BMC support issue:
"MY HEROES!!!!!" (Pascale Sterrett, DTNA)
And some feedback received after an educational shared desktop meeting:
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank to the JSS support team on their excellent support in resolving our issues and giving us a better understanding of how SSO Plugin interacts with AR System. I hope the same kind of support and assistance will be continued and they will build their tools in other areas. Hats off to JSS." (Hari Varma, Chevron)
And some others:
"Thanks to you both we now have a successful implementation of Java System Solutions SSO. We've all discussed the outstanding support received; everyone's very impressed." (Brian Stone, NGA)
"You folks must sleep with your phones - great customer service!" (Bud Hartley, CNRL)
John Baker commented:
“Customer service is important to us and we're determined to continue raising standards."