Review: HP Open View Select Access

HP OpenView Select Access 6.0 provides a sophisticated and scalable access management solution for online resources. It may be used for employees accessing intranet resources, for external users undertaking transactions with your organization via the internet, for partner organizations to share resources, or any mix of access.

Administration may be centralized or distributed via a delegated administration capability. Access rules follow a role-based approach according to user profiles.

Such information may already exist in LDAP directories, or be input via an administrator, or even by the user on a self-serve basis according to previously defined rules. External user data, and so profiles, may be subject to change and this can be readily detected.

Select Access 6.0 can also detect new resources on a given network and automatically add them to the Policy Matrix, a useful and intuitive visual matrix showing both users and resources.

Depending on your infrastructure, deployment may take a little planning and will typically involve various server components. Select Access itself makes heavy use of XML for queries responses and is potentially extendable via APIs, enabling custom plug-ins.

However, the features and tools provided as standard will probably satisfy most organizations. These include Setup and Policy Builder utilities for intuitive configuration and administration. Passwords are managed, including refresh rates and the sending of reminders, and users may update their own passwords. Single sign-on is supported for seamless domain navigation.

A wide range of operating systems and servers are supported, along with an impressive range of directories, making it likely that Select Access can be readily deployed within most organizations.

This is a serious product that, if correctly understood and configured, could bring many benefits to organizations for whom online access is key to their business.

For:

Flexibility and scalability.

Not exactly plug-and-play.

A well-conceived enterprise-level managed solution.