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"Sun's new identity management products provide a totally integrated and complete solution," says Mark McClain, Sun vice president, software marketing. "To best leverage their existing IT infrastructure, customers can choose to implement all or any combination of the three products, integrate third-party solutions, or phase in elements of the product line over time.

"This makes interoperability simple and affordable, decreasing integration costs, reducing deployment times, and maximizing the value of prior technology investments."

New Security Challenges

These products are Sun's answer to the challenges faced by our customers as they attempt to minimize security risks, control costs, and maintain service levels, while sharing information with employees, customers, and partners. Regulatory mandates such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the European Union Data Protection Act add to the challenge.

"Managing and controlling access to our systems and information is critical to our business processes. We have successfully deployed Sun's identity management solutions and believe they are on target with their product strategy," says Zulfi Ahmed, vice president and chief information security officer, Caremark Rx, Inc., one of the largest pharmaceutical services companies in the U.S., and one of the nation's leading prescription benefits managers.

"We applaud Sun's continuing commitment to support a wide array of third-party platforms, as this is necessary to support identity management in the large enterprise today."

Meeting the Need--Effectively

"Identity management is on a trajectory to be as important to network services as ERP and CRM are to manufacturing and professional services," says Jonathan Schwartz, Sun president and COO. Thus, there is a critical need for advanced products that provide visibility and control over access to corporate assets shared across the entire value chain.

Security-related losses to consumers, businesses, merchants, credit issuers, and the financial industry are estimated at $24 billion in 2003, nearly triple the $8.75 billion in losses during 2002, according to the Aberdeen Group. The Meta Group underscores the urgency of proper security and identity management: "Effective management of users' identity, credential, and access rights must be implemented by organizations, not as a differentiator but as a mandatory security consideration, a business imperative, and a nonnegotiable user expectation."

Sun's identity management suite is a result of the company's commitment to meeting these challenges for our customers. The Sun Java System Identity Manager, the Sun Java System Access Manager, and the Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition provide a complete solution that replaces manual methods with automated, flexible, rules-driven processes.

The Sun Java System Identity Manager

Because meta-directory and provisioning projects are two key, interrelated aspects of identity management, Sun has converged these functions in the Sun Java System Identity Manager. It is the industry's first solution to deliver such a comprehensive set of provisioning and synchronization capabilities in one integrated package.

The product provides provisioning, password management, profile management, and identity synchronization. It allows enterprises to implement these capabilities without the overhead of multiproduct purchases and deployments.

Through the use of automation, delegation, and self-service, the Sun Java System Identity Manager reduces operating costs as it lightens administrative workloads for help desk and other personnel. It fully automates and secures the administration of the identity management life cycle--from initiating and changing access privileges to revoking accounts when relationships with the company expire.

The software automatically synchronizes identity data across a wide range of heterogeneous applications, databases, and other data stores. This ensures that identity data is accurate and consistent both within and outside the boundaries of the enterprise.

The Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition

Enterprises require a secure, highly available, scalable, and easy-to-manage directory infrastructure for storing and using identity data. The Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition delivers these capabilities for entry-level to large-scale deployments, easily scaling to meet new business demands and changes in technology.

The product's superior scalability reduces total cost of ownership by decreasing the number of systems that must be deployed. It also cuts costs by centralizing identity information and making that data available to multiple applications, rather than requiring that applications store and maintain data in multiple locations.

Proxy services provide firewall-like protection against denial-of-service and unauthorized access. Multimaster replication, load balancing, and automatic failover help make services available around the clock.

The Sun Java System Access Manager

Sun recognizes that many customers have moved from single sign-on (SSO) to centralized authorization, and that many are moving to a federated identity model. This model spans the entire value chain and is crucial to enabling trust circles. The Sun Java System Access Manager provides the enterprise with a robust, interoperable, standards-based authentication and authorization solution for identity federation.

By using a central point of authentication, role-based access control, and SSO, the Sun Java System Access Manager provides a scalable security model for all Web-based applications. It simplifies the exchange of information and transactions while protecting the privacy and security of vital identity information.

The Sun Java System Access Manager also allows administrators to audit any intrusion or unauthorized access in real time. It creates a clear, repeatable, and trackable security process that can be enforced across the enterprise on the basis of user identities.

Working Together--Seamlessly

Sun's suite of identity management products allows the easy integration and exchange of identity data between applications. The Sun Java System Identity Manager, the Sun Java System Access Manager, and the Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition interoperate with other business systems, as well as with third-party security and identity management solutions.

More than 40 out-of-the box resource adapters enable provisioning and identity synchronization with directory servers, databases, mainframes, operating systems, messaging platforms, Web access control products, and enterprise applications from leading companies such as BEA Systems, Entrust Technologies, IBM, Microsoft, Netegrity, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork, Oracle, PeopleSoft, RSA Security, and SAP. More than 30 policy agents enable SSO and access control across multiple platforms and applications.

"Sun's new products help meet the needs of our enterprise customers for secure, open, and comprehensive identity management capabilities. These are truly twenty-first century solutions," says McClain. "With the growing number of threats and the vital role that IT infrastructure plays in business, comprehensive identity management is something no company can do without."

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