June 21, 2008

An Observation

I was going through Linkedin and just clicked on a survey. The results it showed for the survey have something noteworthy. Check it out.

June 20, 2008

Why IDM initiatives fail?

First check this post


What is said here is true. The people who are building solutions only think of technical issues always, rather than the features which are roots of the organization, viz. Processes and Policies. From an architecting perspective it is very crucial to understand the processes of the organization and then chalk out a plan for work rather than checking out what can be done by the product.

I feel, technologically everything is possible, with the only two constraints - TIME and MONEY. If a space shuttle can be sent to MARS, then an Identity implementation is possible, with or without the chosen product's features. However the feasibility of a solution with respect to time and money has to be planned when one architects.

Just my thought ...

Metaview deprecated - SUN Identity Manager 8.0

The best thing I feel SUN developers did was they removed the Metaview feature. This reportedly had couple of bugs and I was once caught by them :-(

June 4, 2008

SUN Identity Manager 8.0 is released

SUN Identity Manager 8.0 is out

For all the enthusiasts - come download and experience the amazing product


A brief overview of this release:

Sun Identity Manager 8.0 is the latest version of the Sun Identity Manager product offering with expanded Role support, enhanced reporting capabilities, and updated resource adapter and application server support. This update improves upon the industry-leading Identity Manager 7.1 solution with:

# Role Enhancements
  • Role life cycle management can require approvals on Role creates, edits and deletes, and Role changes can be applied to all assigned Users.
  • User-to-Role life cycle management improvements enable support for future and temporary Role assignments.
  • Default Role types including Business Roles, IT Roles, Applications, and Assets are now provided to encourage best practices with regards to Role management.
  • Business Roles can contain roles required by all, conditional for some, and optional (by request and optional approval) for others. A Business Role designer can define coarse grain access, while delegating to the user or a manager the ability to fine tune the access within the scope of a Business Role.

# Enhanced Reporting with Data Exporter
  • Manager operational data can be made available for use by other processes and applications.
  • Data held by and flowing through Identity Manager can be periodically exported to a customer-managed data warehouse or third-party business intelligence and reporting tools.
  • Exported data can be used to answer historical questions regarding 'Who had access to a system, and who approved that access?'. It can also be used to provide reports on operational behavior over time, such as 'Provision Operations by Resource' and 'Workflow Approval Response Times'.
# Attribute Configuration
  • Extended, queryable, and summary attributes can now be configured for roles as well as users.
  • The new extended attribute configuration supports specification of value syntax (STRING, INT, DATE, or BOOLEAN), whether the attribute can have a single or multiple values, and a text description for the attribute.

# Other Notable Updates
  • UNIX resource adapters now support SSH connections using private/public key pairs for authentication to managed resources.
  • Service Provider user password changes will be checked against the password policy configured on the user directory.
# Supported Resource Additions and Updates
  • Exchange 2007 (New)
  • Microsoft Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) (New)
  • RSA SecurID 6.1.2 (Updated)
  • Siebel CRM 8.0 (Updated)
  • Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Applications 12 (Updated)
  • HP OpenVMS 8.3 (Updated)
# Supported Application Server Updates
  • Sun Java System Application Server 9.1 (GlassFish v2 UR1, 32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Oracle Application Server Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3 (10.1.3)
  • Oracle Application Server Standard Edition 10g Release 3 (10.1.3)
  • BEA WebLogic Server 10
  • JBoss Application Server 4.2

# Bug Fixes and Platform Support Updates

For more information about the features in this release, see the Identity Manager 8.0 Release Notes or the Identity Manager documentation set.