Exciting news announced yesterday — Likewise has joined the NetApp Alliance Partner Program — providing NetApp customers with identity management and authentication software for secure access control of NetApp unified storage systems. This will give Likewise access to Netapp’s technical resources (forums, simulators, support) and NetApp customers access to Likewise’s technical resources — what does that mean? It means a single system to manage authentication with a centralized policy definition point to control access to an enterprise’s most important asset – information.

What NetApp said: “NetApp is committed to helping our customers drive their businesses by making storage simpler and cheaper to manage,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances at NetApp. “With Likewise joining the NetApp Alliance Partner Program, together we can simplify storage management while improving security.”

So welcome NetApp customers!