IBM System z mainframes enable organizations to run hundreds or even thousands of virtualized Linux systems. But organizations are finding that, to achieve maximum costs savings, they also need a cost-effective way to centrally secure and configure these virtual systems, which are frequently used to host business-critical applications. In this chalktalk you'll learn how IBM has implemented Linux virtualization on System z and how Centrify addresses these unique security and configuration issues.

Running Time: 25 minutes

Speaker
Corey Williams, Director, Product Management

Moderator
Frank Cabri, VP, Marketing

Topics Covered

• An overview of the IBM System z platform, including a discussion of how its s390-based Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) is used with the z/VM hypervisor to host hundreds or even thousands of guest systems running SUSE Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• The move to Linux on System z and how the ease of spinning up new Linux workloads leads to a proliferation of systems
• The corresponding security challenges that arise in situations where each of the many virtual systems, based on the application it is running, has different needs in terms of who should be able to access it and what they can do
• The advantages of leveraging Active Directory's existing repository of enterprise identities to centrally manage administrative access rights and privileges versus individually managing each virtual guest
• The advantages of the Centrify solution, which enables IT managers to use familiar Windows-based tools and processes to manage a wide variety of UNIX, Linux and Mac systems without needing detailed domain knowledge of each system
• How Centrify Zones can be used to logically group guest systems so each can have a distinct set of users, administators and policies
• How the Centrify Suite gives you a global view of the access controls and user audit logs that encompasses not only Linux systems on System z but other virtual or physical UNIX, Linux and Mac systems as well
• Compliance-driven reasons for using Centrify's solution for detailed logging of user activity on UNIX and Linux for monitoring and reporting
• Using the Windows Group Policy for UNIX and Linux feature with Centrify to apply centrally define and distribute consistent configuration and security policies across heterogeneous systems
• Using the Centrify Suite's built-in role-based privilege management solution for UNIX and Linux to control what users can do on each system
• How a large financial institution was able to expand their computing capability while reducing overhead by adopting System z-based virtualization coupled with centralized management using the Centrify Suite.