DigitalPersona Pro was designed to bring biometric fingerprint scanning into the large-scale enterprise. It includes everything that a company would need to deploy biometrics throughout its environment with little trouble or interruption.
This hardware and software package unites workstation logon with many other single sign-on options in everything from web to remote access applications, such as Citrix.
This offering is about as plug-and-play as it gets. To install the server we simply ran the
server-installation wizard and imported the DigitalPersona templates into our Windows Domain Group Policy. Clients could be installed by physically touching the workstations
or by being deployed via group policy and then installing the readers.
Following installation, users can enrol themselves, without the need for administrator
interaction, by using a simple enrolment wizard.
We found that this product performed as if it were a part of the initial environment. By plugging directly into Active Directory and Group Policy it behaves perfectly alongside a Microsoft domain. We found the policy templates were quick and easy to deploy, and there was no extra software to learn as all administration is done directly in Microsoft Management Console.
Accompanying documentation consists of a small, quick-start guide and a PDF administrator manual. The quick-start guide provides a brief overview of how to use the product and details enrolment from the user's perspective. The administrator guide provides a great amount of detail on the various product features and configuration.
DigitalPersona offers two-tiered maintenance and support at 15-20 per cent of the cost of the product, which includes technical support via phone and email. There is also a support area on the website.
Costing c£35 per user for the complete package of hardware and software, this product could become quite pricey in large-scale environments.
However, we do think it offers good value for money, based on its ease of deployment and full integration capability.