What are the Components of a SecureAuth Solution?
The solution is comprised of a .NET web application running on a Server running Windows 2012, Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 2003 R2 (the SecureAuth appliance). This appliance performs the authentication and assertion (IdP) functions using the user accounts located within the customer's Data store (e.g. LDAP, SQL Databases). SecureAuth does not have a user data store. Most of these functions are handled by the SecureAuth Appliance itself, however some functions are handled by, or in conjunction with, the SecureAuth hosted Services. Specifically these are licensing functions, usage tracking as well as third party services (SMS and telephony) which are included in the various licensing models available.
Appliance
SecureAuth offers different appliance types including Virtual, base and advanced hardware appliances. The selection of the appliance platform and the number of appliances depends on the needs of the customer and the environment. All platforms offer the same application functionality, but some have specific advantages or disadvantages depending upon the environment.
Below is a partial list of relevant platform components for comparison.
Virtual On-Premise IEP appliance
Virtual Appliance performance is dependent on the Host's capabilities and reliability
VMWare's Vmotion and similar offerings can provide Host level redundancy
Virtual Snapshots allow nearly instant fallback capabilities
Nearly anything which can be done with Hardware can be virtualized.
Cloud based or hosted appliance
Available from select SecureAuth MSP partners, Authen2cate and Amazon EC2 as well as being 100% hosted on Google Apps Engine.
Can have many of the same strengths and weaknesses as on-premise appliances.
Base / Mid-range On-Premise Hardware IEP Appliance
Intel Quad Core Processor with 8 GB Memory
RAID 1 Redundant SSD Disk
Redundant Fan
Remote management (e.g. IPMI) module
Redundant NIC (team capable)
Advanced On-Premise Hardware IEP Appliance
Dual Intel Quad Core Processor w/ 16 GB Memory
RAID 1 Redundant SSD Disk
Redundant Fan
Remote management (e.g. IPMI) module
Redundant NIC (team capable)
Redundant Power supplies.
SecureAuth Hosted Services
SecureAuth's hosted services are located in a SSEA16 Type II hosting facility. Our hosted services provider has locations in St Louis (2), Philadelphia and Dallas. The SecureAuth services operate in a secure, highly available (redundant) infrastructure which includes cooling, power, network, and internet connectivity.
SecureAuth's specific services include: Load balanced web services, Certificate Authority signing services, Clustered (failover) database services supported by backend services (i.e. Active Directory DNS services, Firewall, IDP, content inspection, etc.)