Oblix boosts Web access control software

CUPERTINO, CALIF. - Oblix has beefed up its identification server with features that let customers share the management of user identities including delegation, group management and self-service.

With NetPoint 5.0, Oblix last week added a host of new group-based identity management features to its NetPoint Web-based access control software. The company also has added XML support for customizing interfaces, querying its identity server and controlling access.

Web-based access control software, which provides IT executives with authentication and authorization services for Web-based applications, is starting to gain popularity. It is beginning to be paired with provisioning software to create an end-user management system that can automatically create and delete users and control their access to resources.

The identity management features in NetPoint 5.0 focus on group management, which let administrators create a hierarchy of user management that can extend beyond the bounds of IT into the intranet and extranet.

"5.0 gives us flexibility because more features are configurable," says John Frazier, director of infrastructure services for i2 Technologies. The company has used NetPoint as part of a project to consolidate nine disparate repositories of user identity information. "The next app we deploy doesn't need to create its own identity system. We consolidated to improve the data's accuracy and to incorporate our applications with the directory."

Oblix hopes to make that integration easier with XML interfaces. A feature called Presentation XML lets users customize the look of the interface on the fly for individual users. Identity XML lets users send an XML document to the identity server to request user information without having to use the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol or programming languages such as C or Java.

NetPoint 5.0 is available now for $50 per user. The software runs on Windows NT and Sun Solaris and supports iPlanet Directory Server, Novell's eDirectory, Microsoft's Active Directory and IBM's SecureWay Directory. Oblix competes with Netegrity and Securant.

Oblix: www.oblix.com

Contact Senior Editor John Fontana

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