Ireland’s Research and Markets issued a report last month (“Business and Technology Issues in IAM”) with this premise: The extended enterprise needs a comprehensive identity layer.
I especially like that the report précis says: “Identity and access management (IAM) is an essential tool for compliance and a key component of information protection in open collaborative working. However, more than this, it is a productivity tool enabling tighter working practices, collaboration, and automation of some error-prone, laborious processes.” I.e., IAM is A tool — not a GROUP of tools. Provisioning without governance, for example, isn’t IAM.
The report was written by Ovum Technologies, and I haven’t read a copy myself (you can for approx. $1,500 if you aren’t an Ovum client), but I do think it’s one you can recommend to your upper management.
I don’t know that this report will directly help you; it identifies its highlight as: “Identity and access management projects can deliver a very high rate of return — if you get them right. Business buy-in at the highest level is essential. Also, incremental rollout with well-defined benefits at each stage will ensure continuing support.” That’s something any regular reader of this newsletter should already know.
But I’m betting it’s wrapped up in nice MBA school language that your business managers will understand — and, hopefully, be swayed by. Just be standing by to answer the technical questions they might have after reading it!
My former colleague (and now Ping Identity evangelist) John Fontana came out with what could be summarized as a yearlong weather report the other day — “partly cloudy, with early fog, hopefully lifting later on.” It was his predictions for cloud-based and cloud-enabled identity protocols for the coming year. It makes a good read, if you have an interest in those things (and we do), at his blog site.
According to my friends at Symplified, identity management was ranked as the No. 1 security technology priority among respondents in Gartner’s 2010 CIO Survey. Come back next issue for their take on the problem, and what they mean to do about it.
It does look like consolidation in the enterprise and extension to the cloud are the agenda for IdM and IAM this year. Sounds like fun!
