Quest Software next week plans to update two of its management packages designed to make it easier to manage and provision users into Microsoft's identity and access control infrastructure, whether they work on Windows, Linux or Unix.

The company will ship Quest ActiveRoles Server 6.0, which is aimed at provisioning users, and will announce that it will ship in early November Vintela Authentication Services 3.1, designed for integrating Linux and Unix environments with Active Directory.

Quest, which says its software already manages 45 million Active Directory users, is aiming to provide a set of sophisticated controls for provisioning, password management, identity integration and auditing/reporting across a variety of operating systems using Active Directory and Microsoft Identity Integration Server at the core.

"We are continuing to expand on our strategy to let customers leverage Active Directory," says Jackson Shaw, senior director of product management for Active Directory solutions at Quest. "Our belief is that AD becomes more and more the strategic platform and that is where we want to be with our software."

To that end, the company is updating ActiveRoles Server with automated user lifecycle provisioning, which includes automated de-provisioning across Windows, Linux, and Unix. Quest is using its own workflow engine to support the feature but will support Microsoft's new Windows Workflow Foundation when it ships with Vista and Longhorn Server. The new features also include a lightweight, bi-directional synchronization tool called Quick Connect that will allow users to synch the directory with authoritative sources of user data such as HR databases for automated provisioning, re-provisioning and de-provisioning. Also new is the Exchange Resource Forest Management tool for synchronized provisioning. The tool also includes a management console for user and mailbox attributes regardless of what Active Directory forest they reside in.

With Vintela Authentication Services 3.1, Quest is adding the Unix Identity Migration Wizard, which allows automated migration and roll back features. Also new is the Ownership Alignment Tool, which helps users assign correct ownership to conflicting users identities and files during the migration process to Active Directory, support for native Windows Security Policy in Active Directory for Unix systems, and Unix host access control through Group Policy.

Quest also has integrated the software with Quest Reporter, Group Policy Manager and ActiveRoles Server and expanded platform support to include Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Enterprise Server 3.0/4.0, VMWare ESX Server, and Ubuntu (Debian).

Quest competes with the likes of Bindview, NetIQ and NetPro on management of Microsoft infrastructure and with Centeris and Centrify in terms of integration with Unix and Linux.

Vintela Authentication Services 3.1 is priced at US$325 per server and US$45 per user. The Unix Identity Migration Wizard is priced at US$12 per user. ActiveRoles Server 6.0 is priced at US$25 per user.