Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Fischer targets 'next generation' of identity mgmt.

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DAVE KEARNS ON IDENTITY MANAGEMENT
08/31/05
Today's focus: Fischer targets 'next generation' of identity
mgmt.

Dear security.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Fischer International's approach to identity management
* Links related to Identity Management
* Featured reader resource
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This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE

Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111660
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Today's focus: Fischer targets 'next generation' of identity
mgmt.

By Dave Kearns

Which company would you say is the oldest "pure play"
provisioning company?

Anyone who said Business Layers or Oblix gets no credit.
Although both were involved in provisioning from the beginning
(defined as 1998), neither is still around as a "pure play"
company - Business Layers was acquired by Netegrity which, in
turn, was bought out by Computer Associates. Oblix was snapped
up by Oracle earlier this year.

No, the longest-running company in pure play provisioning is
also one of the least well known. Fischer International
<http://www.fischerinternational.com/> was founded in 1982 by
Addison Fischer, who is still chairman of the board. While it
didn't do provisioning at the beginning (no one did), its
long-running experience in the security arena gave it a leg up
on the competition in provisioning, especially when single and
reduced sign-on, password reset and other security-conscious
services are taken together with provisioning to create a
well-integrated identity management suite.

And "well integrated" is a key concept to Fischer CEO Renée
Bacherman. In a conversation last week, she talked about what
she referred to as the last generation of services and
applications, "applications layered on top of and beside other
applications without regard to integration, correlation,
business processes."

She continued:

"This resulted in numerous and complex islands of automation.
Organizations constantly struggle to integrate these islands of
automation to better exploit their technology investments.
Organizations have too much data and too little information
because the business process view is buried within many
different applications. Automated business process management
and compliance require integration technology for organizations
to fully realize the potential of their technology investments."

Bacherman calls Fischer's technologies the "next generation" of
identity management:

"Architecture is key. Only an identity management solution that
is built as an integration technology can quickly be assimilated
into an enterprise. These solutions must replicate the
hub-and-spoke and publish-and-subscribe architectures that the
EAI [enterprise application integration] vendors developed.
Since this technology inherently enables the business process
view, it facilitates the ability to include compliance by
design. Identity management delivers a centralized point of
administration, centralized audit database, out-of-the-box audit
policies and assessment workflows, all of which are coexistent
with the provisioning, password management, identity management
and self-service functionality."

I certainly can't argue with that. Still, a number of vendors
will respond that they also design their suites on integration
technology. So I'll give you one more reason to take a look at
Fischer: mobile technology.

In an upcoming release of the Fischer Identity Suite (due out by
the end of October), the workflow engine will allow you to
include mobile platforms in the approval process. Need an
approval right now, but the right manager is stuck at DFW
waiting for a plane? Route the workflow to her mobile platform
and she can approve (or disapprove) all of the waiting requests
while standing in line at the coffee shop, or in the waiting
lounge or anywhere else with mobile connectivity. That, I think,
really is "next generation" thinking.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. 2005 salary survey <http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv3879>

2. Google dives deeper into networking
<http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv6199>

3. Cisco aims to simplify switch mgmt.
<http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv6200>

4. VoIP season about to heat up
<http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv6201>

5. A proposal for governing the 'Net
<http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv6202>

Today's most-forwarded story:

VoIP rollouts generate heat, power concerns
<http://www.networkworld.com/nldsv6203>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dave Kearns

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's
written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print
"Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be
found at Virtual Quill <http://www.vquill.com/>.

Kearns is the author of three Network World Newsletters: Windows
Networking Tips, Novell NetWare Tips, and Identity Management.
Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these

respective addresses: <mailto:windows@vquill.com>,
<mailto:netware@vquill.com>, <mailto:identity@vquill.com>.

Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books,
manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing,
technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill
provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail at
<mailto:info@vquill.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE

Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111659
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Identity Management newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/dir/index.html
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Managed Network Services and Lowering Total Cost of Ownership

No IT organization can provide all services to all its users
without using external resources. A key task is to identify
which functions can be performed internally and which functions
should be outsourced. Learn more now.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111527
_______________________________________________________________
FEATURED READER RESOURCE
VoIP

For the latest in VoIP, check out NW's Research Center on this
very topic. Here you will find a collection of the latest news,
reviews, product testing results and more all related to keeping
VoIP networks performing at their best. Click here for more:
<http://www.networkworld.com/topics/voip.html>
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