Oracle Identity Management software upgrade

Oracle has announced the immediate availability of Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3. Complete with a robust, comprehensive set of access control, identity administration, provisioning and directory services capabilities, this latest release enables organisations to manage the end-to-end lifecycle of user identities across heterogeneous enterprise resources within and beyond their organisational boundaries, while helping to streamline sustainable compliance policies and controls.

Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 integrates multiple key software solutions that Oracle has attained through a combination of acquisitions and organic development, including Web access management, user provisioning, identity federation and directory services.

Built on open standards, Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 is hot-pluggable and interoperates with packaged applications, including Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, PeopleSoft Enterprise and Siebel applications, and SAP.

The new release also offers support for 12 additional platforms, demonstrating Oracle's commitment to heterogeneity.

Each component of Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 features updates, including enhanced internationalisation and localisation support for 28 languages. Key updates include:

¤ Oracle Identity Manager (formerly known as Oracle Xellerate Identity Provisioning) automates the process of provisioning IT resources across heterogeneous business processes and managed platforms. It is now integrated into the Oracle Identity Management framework and features a new module for audit and compliance, with expanded data capture, an attestation framework, improved reporting and comprehensive platform support;

¤ Oracle Access Manager (formerly known as Oracle COREid Access and Identity) provides Web single sign-on, identity administration and comprehensive reporting and auditing. It now includes advanced password management capabilities, new performance enhancements, shared-secret enhancements to improve security between software components, additional authentication triggers and new third party platform certifications;

¤ Oracle Virtual Directory enables multiple LDAP directories or relational databases to look like a single, unified LDAP store. It includes new audit and reporting features, and improved installation/configuration for use with Oracle Identity Management products, IBM Tivoli, and Microsoft Active Directory;

¤ Oracle Internet Directory Services is an LDAP v3 directory that leverages the scalability, high availability and security features of Oracle Database. It includes enhanced LDAP-based fan-out replication, tighter password integration with Active Directory, and OID synchronisation support for Novell eDirectory and OpenLDAP. It also offers increased manageability capabilities through integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g; and

¤ Oracle Identity Federation (formerly known as Oracle COREid Federation) is a stand-alone, simple-to-deploy, fully functional federation server, featuring enhanced support for SAML 2.0 and WS-Federation.

"Now more than ever, customers are looking for a comprehensive identity management software platform that can be implemented via a single license and supported by a single vendor," Hasan Rizvi, vice-president, Identity Management development at Oracle, said.

"Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 provides customers with an identity platform, that increases business agility and helps reduce costs and achieve regulatory compliance so that enterprises can get the most from existing and future IT investments."

Organisations benefiting

Highmark Inc. is the largest health insurance company in Pennsylvania based on membership and is one of the largest health insurers in the United States. Faced with a growing user population and an increasing number of applications to access, the company needed an open, standards-based identity management solution that could scale to meet its changing needs.

Highmark selected Oracle Identity Management to manage more than a million external users and 12,000 internal users who access more than 50 applications via the IBM WebSphere portal.

"Our existing identity management application was not open or scalable enough to meet the demanding requirements of our heterogeneous IT environment," Mike Dowling, Identity Management project manager, at Highmark, said.

"Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Virtual Directory were the most open, integrated and comprehensive offerings that meet our needs. We will leverage Oracle Access Manager to streamline access to our more than 50 applications via WebSphere portal while Oracle Virtual Directory will be used to centralise identities by integrating user information from a SunOne LDAP Server, Microsoft Active Directory and RedHat LDAP."

MphasiS, a global information technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider to global 2000 companies that focuses on the financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare and technology industries, is using the provisioning capabilities of Oracle Identity Management to develop and implement best practices for its contact centre.

"With more than 10,000 employees working on customer engagements at any given time, it is important for us to provide top-notch service to our customers, while strengthening security and increasing productivity," Mitish Chitnavis, group chief security officer, MphasiS, said.

"To do this, we need a best-in-class, standards-based provisioning solution. Oracle Identity Manager was the only offering that met our requirements. We currently use the software to provision and manage user accounts across Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange 2000, BEA WebLogic, Ramco HR and various other enterprise applications in a high-volume contact centre.

"As a result, we have reduced the average lead time from request to fulfilment from five days to 15 minutes across 10 different applications."

For more information on Oracle Identity Management visit www.oracle.com/identity