CA Wily monitors ID mgmt. transactions

CA's Wily Technology Tuesday made available software that would pinpoint the source of performance slowdowns at the transaction level during user login and authentication processes.

Wily Manager for SiteMinder Web Access Manager works with CA's SiteMinder access and identity management software to give IT managers visibility into transaction performance during user authentication and authorization processes. The software monitors SiteMinder agents on Web and application servers to verify the status of each transaction. This level of visibility could help application managers more quickly identify the root of performance issues users encounter when logging onto Web sites and other protected resources, the company says.

"We are getting polling data from SiteMinder agents and MIBs, so we are offering an added layer of visibility," says Michael Battat, product manager. "The information can help application owners ensure the customer experience is positive and eliminate finger-pointing with the security team as to where performance degraded."

Wily Manager for SiteMinder uses Wily's flagship Introscope technology, which includes server software and distributed agents. The data it collects enables the software to identify transaction paths, isolate performance bottlenecks and alerts staff automatically to any issues with SiteMinder transactions. SiteMinder agents check user IDs and passwords against predefined policies in an LDAP or other directory and typically reside on Web and application servers. Wily is able to pull transaction and SNMP data from SiteMinder.

CA says the software can also bridge a gap between two typically disparate IT domains: applications and security. Industry watchers say the software is an example of CA integrating its existing tools to give customers an end-to-end view of application performance.

"This will benefit CA customers that own both products by correlating SiteMinder performance metrics to the view of end-to-end application performance that Introscope already provides," said Jasmine Noel, principal analyst at Ptak, Noel and Associates, in a CA press release.

Wily Manager for SiteMinder is priced at $1,500 per agent CPU.