First, allow us to congratulate Datakey on a most comprehensive and clearly written set of user guides. This is an important factor for many users and yet so often overlooked in contemporary products. For those as yet unfamiliar with smartcards and tokens, this can be very helpful and save them a lot of time as they progress along their own particular learning curve.
Installing the various utilities for the Datakey product proved to be an intuitive and trouble-free process. Several smartcard reader types are supported, as well as keyboards which incorporate such readers as the popular Cherry models. A Datakey-badged Gemplus reader was supplied for test and this was instantly recognized and performed faultlessly throughout.
A SmartMonitor icon in the system tray provides fast access to the various utilities, and can also act as a data filler when using the SmartLogon feature. As you might guess, SmartLogon enables user name and password pairs to be stored securely on the smartcard and then automatically inserted into logon dialogues for local applications, web sites and so on. This was tested in conjunction with internet sites via Microsoft Internet Explorer (Netscape also supported) and worked perfectly well.
An unusual but potentially useful facility is provided by the SmartNotes utility, which enables the user to store private information on the smartcard in the form of titled notes.
Other utilities are available which register digital credentials stored on the token with Microsoft Windows and associated applications, and there is also a Datakey CMS or Card Management System, which may be evaluated via the internet.
The CMS allows you to manage your security environment. This utility appears to be very comprehensive and yet remains intuitive in use, as indeed do all the Datakey modules. In short, Datakey provides an easy to understand introduction to the use of smartcards for authentication purposes, using proven technology and intuitive software utilities.
A security manager/administrator will have no problems getting to grips with the Datakey way of working. This is a very well considered product.
Datakey tells us that from time to time the private-labeled reader may change and presently the readers that are shipping are private-labeled from Omnikey.
