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When it comes to the subject of information security, identity management is definitely the hot topic of the moment. But there is real reason for businesses to be enthralled with the topic as they start to realise that identity management is vital to protect their information assets as well as to meet the relevant regulatory compliance or privacy obligations. In a recent high profile example in the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs has come under fire for inadequate security provisions that enabled the theft of 26.5 million veterans’ identities from a laptop stolen from an employee’s home.

And whilst regulatory compliance and privacy obligations are one thing, Sara Gates, Vice President Identity Management at Sun Microsystems was recently quoted in The Australian saying that the simple reason identity management is gaining attention and growing so fast is because the technology helps control who has access to what. “Identity management is how you make security a part of your daily business in ways that help you unlock business value and make money. Companies that don’t have effective identity management risk having poor security infrastructure and not being able to move as fast as their competitors,” she said.

Sun Microsystems has long been involved in the area of identity management as a founding member of the Liberty Alliance consortium and has received recent recognition for its leading user provisioning product. Sun is positioned as the leader in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner, Inc. User Provisioning Magic Quadrant 1H 06. Also, Forrester evaluated user account provisioning across 125 criteria in The Forrester Wave: User Account Provisioning, Q1 2006. It found that Sun is a market leader for a reason – its product delivers superior provisioning functionality with the highest ease of use.

In light of this, Object is pleased to announce that it has been awarded Sun Microsystems’ Identity Management Elite Partner status. In granting this status, Sun recognises that Object has the skills and knowledge necessary to deliver state of the art identity management and security solutions to customers based on Sun technologies. It also makes Object a preferred delivery partner for Sun’s customers around identity management. Object has trained a number of existing employees and hired several highly qualified new employees to create a solid base of Sun identity management accredited employees.

Object joins an exclusive group of Sun Identity Management Elite Partners. The program is run in addition to Sun’s Partner Advantage Program with applicants undertaking a higher level of both technical and sales focused identity management training.

According to Gary O’Brien, Identity Management Practice Manager, Sun Microsystems, “A key element of our business is to extend Sun’s market coverage through strong partnerships with systems integrators, consultants, distributors and value-added resellers in order to meet the needs of our customers. Object was a logical selection as a preferred delivery partner for identity management solutions given their long standing expertise in component-based technologies and J2EE. We were impressed by the scale of Object’s business, its outstanding services delivery model and the breadth of its skill base.”

Julian Edwards, Chief Operating Officer, Object Consulting believes that the combination of Sun’s industry leading products together with Object’s development and delivery expertise will produce the most comprehensive identity management and security solutions for customers and give Object greater reach and additional credibility in the user provisioning area.

Customers will benefit from access to the combined identity management skills of both Object and Sun, as well as the preferential access Object receives to demonstration products, training and marketing materials from Sun.
In future editions of UpGrade we will be bringing you more information on identity management and discussing some specific trends and how technology is actually being used in this area.

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Identity Management Defined
Identity Management or IdM is an integrated system of business processes, policies and technologies that enable organisations to facilitate and control their users’ access to critical online applications and resources, while protecting confidential personal and business information from unauthorised users. It represents a category of interrelated solutions that are employed to administer user authentication, access rights, access restrictions, account profiles, passwords, and other attributes supportive of users’ roles/profiles on one or more applications or systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_management

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More information:
If you would like more information on Object’s capabilities around identity management please contact an Object Account Manager in Sydney on 02 9459 3300, in Melbourne on 03 8615 4500 or in Canberra on 02 6243 5159.