Ping Identity today unveiled PingFederate 5.0, the most significant release to date of the company’s rapidly deployable identity federation software. PingFederate 5.0 is now available for download from www.pingidentity.com. Auto-Connect, a new feature in PingFederate 5.0, automatically establishes SAML connections for secure Internet single sign-on (SSO) in seconds versus the weeks or months it often takes with other products.

Growth in the use of hosted software and business process outsourcing (BPO) is driving demand for secure Internet single sign-on. Widely-accepted standard protocols such as SAML are ideally suited to deliver SSO for these applications, but until now, implementation of SAML-based projects could take months. While Ping Identity customers often establish SSO in days with PingFederate 4, companies looking at dozens, hundreds or even thousands of SSO connections have been seeking an even faster solution.

Introducing Auto-Connect

PingFederate 5.0’s new Auto-Connect feature automatically creates secure SAML SSO connections in seconds. It eliminates the manual tasks that previously had to be performed by administrators to configure SAML connections, such as the exchange of certificates and configuration data. Furthermore, it is fast: SSO connections can now be established virtually instantly with PingFederate 5.0 and Auto-Connect.

“Our goal is to make secure Internet single sign-on as easy as setting up an email server,” said Andre Durand, Ping Identity CEO. “SAML adoption has been hindered by the complexity of manually establishing and testing connections. Auto-Connect changes all of that.”

“Our vision for Auto-Connect is to completely eliminate the need for testing individual connections,” said Patrick Harding, Ping Identity CTO. “Once PingFederate 5.0 works with one Auto-Connect enabled federation partner, it will work with all Auto-Connect enabled partners.”

"Federation technology must advance significantly if it is to become as pervasive as email services, which don't require extensive coordination between domains to establish connectivity," said Gerry Gebel, vice president and service director at Burton Group. "It's good to see federation product vendors addressing deployment scalability challenges, which will enable large enterprises to more easily integrate with partner networks."

Since Auto-Connect is based on capabilities already available in SAML 2, the dynamic federation techniques that make Auto-Connect possible can readily be standardized without requiring changes to the core SAML 2 specification. Ping Identity has been working with the Internet2 consortium, the Liberty Alliance Concordia Project and other federated identity vendors to produce a dynamic SAML profile that will be submitted to the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee later this year.

Additional New Features in PingFederate 5.0

In addition to Auto-Connect, PingFederate 5.0 includes other significant improvements:

• Enhanced clustering allows administrators to deploy multiple PingFederate servers in clusters across multiple data centers for increased throughput and availability.
• SNMP support allows administrators to monitor PingFederate with enterprise system management tools.
• Additional integration kits facilitate linking PingFederate with custom PHP applications, Apache, Microsoft IIS and Microsoft SharePoint. The new Apache and IIS integration kits support “low-touch” integration, which federation-enable applications without requiring any source code changes.
• An Advanced Authentication module simplifies integration with complex authentication mechanisms. Also available are commercially supported PingFederate plug-ins for CardSpace and OpenID.
• Expanded certificate management capabilities including certificate expiration alerts, Certificate Revocation List (CRL) support and a streamlined GUI that further simplifies certificate administration.

About PingFederate

PingFederate is the world’s first rapidly deployable software that enables secure Internet single sign-on. Through standards based identity federation, PingFederate provides an organization’s users safe access to Internet applications without the need to re-login. Identity federation deployments that used to take six months or more now take days with PingFederate’s easy-to-use comprehensive software. Over a dozen PingFederate integration kits enable first-mile integration, leveraging existing identity management infrastructure, and last-mile integration, providing scalable target application connections.

About Ping Identity Corporation

Ping Identity’s dedication to delivering secure Internet single sign-on software and services for over 150 customers worldwide has earned us recognition as the market leader in federated identity management. PingFederate, the world’s first rapidly deployable identity federation software, provides organizations’ users safe access to Internet applications without the need to re-login. With PingFederate and PingEnable—Ping Identity’s expert support, services, and methodologies—external connections can be operational in less than a week. Download a free trial at http://www.pingidentity.com.