It is clear that Identity and Access Management systems deliver significant
benefits but what exactly are they? What exactly can you use these solutions
for? Listed below are answers to a few common questions, and links to short
examples of types of Identity Management projects that deliver substantial
value and Return on investment (ROI).
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What is an Identity Management system?
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What value can I realize from an Identity Management
solution?
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Who should consider using an Identity Management
solution?
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What is User provisioning?
An Identity Management system is a central IT-user management and automation
system. The Identity Management system controls users, passwords, access
permissions, and accounts across multiple IT systems.
Identity Management solutions address the following challenges:
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Reducing the costs of managing user accounts on multiple systems
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Enforcing data security policy
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Managing users in an enterprise portal or B2B application
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Centralizing users’ management on web-based applications and on legacy
applications
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Enforcing password policy
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Alleviating the burden of password reset and unlocking
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Ensuring that former employees do not have access to the organization’s data
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Streamlining and shortening new-hire and termination processes
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Minimizing the costs and administrative challenges of managing business
partners who access your data systems
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Avoiding orphan accounts
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An Identity Management system can help you to:
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Build a central users’ data repository
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Synchronize users data between different IT systems
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Create and maintain a single point of management for all IT users
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Enforce your security policy
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Automatically create, modify, or delete accounts
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Automate & delegate complex manual workflows
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Define and automate Web Access Control
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Synchronize passwords between multiple IT systems
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Provide single sign-on
Identity Management solutions can bring the following benefits to your
organization:
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Tighter data security
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Thousands of manual IT tasks performed automatically
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Significantly lower IT overhead
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Users who can support themselves without calling the Help Desk for every
routine request
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Productivity increases for everyone, both inside and outside IT
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You can benefit from an Identity Management solution if you need to:
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Decrease Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs
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Decrease IT operational expenses while maintaining or increasing
responsibilities
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Enforce or tighten data-security policy
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Have better control and monitoring over your user populations and accounts
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Improve customers’ experience while logging in to your multiple Web-based
applications
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Delegate user accounts administration to other organizations or departments
within your organization
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Service a "to do" list requiring more resources than available
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Synchronize users data and/or passwords across several systems
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Demonstrate strong emphasis on worker productivity
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Considered by some to be the "holy grail" of Identity Management, user
provisioning includes the following functionality:
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User's data repository
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User's accounts and data management
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Roles and privileges definition and management
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Automatic account creation, termination, and modification
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Automatic role creation, termination, and modification
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Password synchronization
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User self-service
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User auditing and reporting
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Security policy enforcement (password policy, access policy, group's policy
etc.)
To learn more about user provisioning
download our latest whitepaper.
Giga Research (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Forrester Research) has
quantified the benefits of user provisioning and password management as
follows:
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Improved IT efficiency: $70,000/user for every 1,000 managed users
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Audit savings: $4,000/security audit
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Reduced help desk costs: $75/user per year
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Faster access to applications : $1,000/new employee, $350/year per existing
employee
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A single point of access for employees to view and modify identity data:
$100/user per year
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Improved searching for user data: $1,000/user per year
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Improved updating of user data: $185/user per year
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Improved list management: $800/e-mail distribution list
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These
projects can last for 2-3 months and in most cases
will include light business process analysis, and only 1-3 simple target
systems to manage.
The idea is to try and use the provisioning server’s "out of the box"
functionality, basically adapting the organization to the software rather than
the other way around. There will be minimal or no customization of approval
processes, GUI, data exchange between target system and the provisioning
server, reverse synchronization functionality, user types, change requests
status, and other parameters. This process fits organizations wishing to invest
minimally and get a new process in place with less emphasis on supporting the
organization’s current business processes.
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These projects
usually take 3 to 6 months and will involve 2 to 4 target systems and some
customization of all parameters. In these projects a few areas, including ERP
systems, US and non-US employee management, and password synchronization across
diverse platforms including multiple ERP subsystems, will not be explored as
deeply as roles allocation and management. Roles, unlike accounts, require a
more complex process analysis and solution design, which translates to a more
complex selection, approval, and provisioning process to implement and test.
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These
solutions will take more than 6 months and will integrate more than 4 target
systems including an ERP system with several sub-systems such as HR, Portal,
and Finance, and may also include integration with a Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
tool or expanded functionality to support Segregation of Duties (SoD) analysis.
These projects will handle multiple user types, multiple role types, HR
integration, customized reverse synchronization, heavily customized GUI,
cross-platform password synchronization, complete self-service, various
approval and provisioning processes, connectors customization to support the
business process, customized reports, and data modification auditing.
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To learn more contact us.
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