Sun Microsystems Unveils Next-Generation Identity Manager Software

Strengthens Solution for Access Compliance

(07.07.08) - Sun Microsystems announced the immediate availability of Sun Identity Manager 8.0, the latest version of Sun's flagship provisioning software.

With numerous product enhancements and new functionality, such as data export and attestation capabilities, Sun Identity Manager 8.0 is the first user provisioning software to truly provide role-based user provisioning, enabling customers to use business roles for both identity lifecycle management and identity auditing across enterprise and extranet environments. The solution has deep integration with Sun Role Manager to help enterprises with their attestation and identity audit needs. In addition, major updates in operational reporting allow customers to analyze their entitlement data, which can help them gain better control of their provisioning and auditing processes, make compliance a sustainable part of their business and reduce costs.

"Addressing security and compliance continues to be a significant expenditure for organizations," said Mark Herring, vice president of marketing, Software Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems. "By more closely integrating provisioning and role management, we're offering companies increased levels of automation. Our solutions help solve everyday identity problems that keep customers awake at night: on-boarding and off-boarding of workers, compliance with internal audit policies and costs associated with access control processes."

"The enhancements in Sun's latest release of Identity Manager will help make our quarterly audits much easier. Now instead of trying to make sense of technical entitlement jargon, we can apply business terminology such as job titles and functions to grant and review user access privileges," said Mark Satterfield, senior vice president, Enterprise Planning & Architecture, Equifax.

With Sun Identity Manager 8.0, customers have new options to expand their services via the Internet and address government regulations (such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act - SOX, HIPPA, and Basel II) in a consistent, automated and cost-effective way, while also increasing productivity and reducing security risks. New features of Sun Identity Manager 8.0 include:

Data Export: Export identity data and events to external data warehouses and business intelligence tools for further analysis. Benefits include: Robust reporting capabilities and entitlement manage-ment.

Comprehensive Attestation: Integrate with Sun Role Manager to create an end-to-end solution for certifying access and automatically remediating exceptions.

Better Integration of Business Roles: Integrate with Sun Role Manager to enable importing of predefined business roles and automate provisioning and auditing at the business role level.

A key component of Sun's solution for access compliance, Sun Identity Manager 8.0 is available as a stand-alone product or with the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, which includes Sun Role Manager, Sun Java System Access Manager, Sun Java System Federation Manager, and Sun Java System Directory Server. Pricing information is available under a subscription or license basis.

Sun Offers Solutions for Access Compliance

With new enhancements to Sun Identity Manager and Sun Role Manager, Sun is one of the first vendors to offer a comprehensive solution for enterprise environments. Sun's access compliance offering will help companies streamline their existing access control processes, enhance audit effectiveness and lower compliance-related costs. Sun's complete role-enabled identity suite provides customers with enhanced user provisioning capabilities; the most complete attestation engine to deliver "closed-loop" compliance, including the ability to proactively review and correct improperly assigned access; and the best access compliance reporting solution, to help keep organizations on track. (Sun: ra)