This week is the annual Catalyst conference where it’s become traditional for identity vendors and organizations to make major initiative and product announcements. I’ve a handful for you today, and I’m sure I’ll have more to report in future issues.

Avatier has just announced Version 7 of the Avatier Identity Management Suite (AIMS), which includes the new Identity Enforcer module. This new module is described as a “self-service user provisioning” module, as described by CEO Nelson Cicchitto, who got really excited about it. The new module’s key features include the Hierarchical Business Services Repository – a structured view of available roles, privileges and assets that a delegated manager – or even a self-provisioning end user – can pick and choose from. See the Web site for all the details.

Sun has announced a partnership with Deloitte & Touche to promote its Enterprise Role Lifecycle Management (ERLM) offering, which combines Deloitte & Touche’s Role Management for Enterprises (RM4E) service delivery methodology, Sun's Java System Identity Manager, and Vaau's RBACx role mining, role lifecycle management and role reporting capabilities. You can read the descriptive pamphlet online or get more info from your Sun or Deloitte representative.

Courion has released Courion Enterprise Provisioning Suite for Microsoft SharePoint, a product I got a sneak peek at during its user conference last month. Key benefits of the automated Courion-SharePoint capabilities include allowing organizations to select an appropriate level of control based on their security policy; the ability to help organizations gain better visibility into where to apply business policy in SharePoint, and at which security or resource level (such as Site, Document Library or Document); and how to set up rules for collaboration and sharing. With this tool, SharePoint users should be able to improve security controls while reducing administrative costs, minimizing manual operations and improving employee productivity. Sounds like a winner.

Finally, Aveksa announced the Aveksa 3 Enterprise Access Governance Suite. This includes the new Aveksa Role Manager - a role discovery and lifecycle management tool, as well as the third generation of its flagship product Aveksa Compliance Manager, a policy-based tool for automated monitoring, review and remediation of user access privileges and compliance automation. Aveksa 3 claims to automate the monitoring, reporting, certification and remediation of user entitlements and roles for information assets across the enterprise while enabling role discovery and lifecycle management. It provides visibility into who has access to what, how they got that access, whether they should have access, and whether compliance objectives are being met. Aveksa 3 should allow organizations to more efficiently address security and regulatory demands through collaborative business processes that automate manual tasks, enforce accountability and provide evidence of compliance. Everything you want to know is at the Web site, where you can also schedule a demo.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.