Identity Management Analysis – Are we there yet?

Posted at June 25, 2008

Most definately not. This is a very brief snap shot of analysis at the current Burton Group Catalyst Conference North America 2008.

With over a decade of sustained development on identity management (IdM) technologies, the market is both flourishing and flailing. As IdM vendors swarm around the most lucrative IT projects, the demand for compliance software in particular has left a permanent mark on IdM landscape. Technologies such as user provisioning, user federation, and directory services do—when judiciously applied—help organizations achieve near term audit and regulatory goals. But the presumption of centralized, command/control built into these technologies is already showing its limitations. Businesses are increasingly relying on partnerships to achieve their objectives, meaning that users and IT systems are rarely all “under one roof.” Instilling control over distributed environments is a tall order for IdM systems, but the reaction can’t be to demand businesses to return to monolithic domains. Instead, the technology must become more sophisticated to enable businesses to collaborate efficiently over distributed systems and with a diversified user population.

When was the last time we saw a technology swarm every user online and off line? Was it Paypal? Oh yes PayPal is online only. This is an interesting book that talks about Identity and the look at what happens when Identity is breached. Zero Day Threat author Byron Acohido video.