Product Information
Version:v3
Price:$4,200 for up to 250 users
The Celo v3 product from Commerce Media offers a highly customizable, flexible and scalable two-factor authentication (2FA) tool for securing IT systems, protecting data and/or implementing disaster recovery plans.
Celo's central management approach facilitates multiple delivery methods of a one-time-password (OTP). Several delivery options are available. The software supports email transport. Three third-party providers support short message service (SMS) transport on a fee basis. An extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP) transport is also available for IM protocol. Organizations can stipulate one medium for all, allow different departments within an organization to choose different mediums, or provide individual users with the option to select the medium relevant to them.
The solution sits between users and applications/websites and allows for two-factor authentication by integrating with those applications and websites via web services using SOAP (simple object access protocol) or through Radius. For convenience, Celo provides some sample client libraries that can be used for this integration. The architecture allows for seamless integration into IT infrastructures, supporting Radius or SOAP.
The installation required Microsoft IIS and .NET Framework 2.0. We had to manually configure our SQL database prior to loading the software. The software install was a bit clunky, requiring many manual steps to configure database components and permissions.
The software documentation states that the servers can be clustered for scalability and can authenticate numbers up to 100,000 users. Reporting and logging was less than desirable.
The price for up to 250 users is $4,200, 251-2,500 users: $12,600, and 2,501+ users: price on application.
The solution was not easy to deploy and is costly for an organization over 250 users, but the fact that it can integrate with current apps and websites and uses OTP via a cell phone, makes it an option that can be easy to manage and cost-effective to manage going forward.