Review: Novell Identity Manager 3.5

For: First-rate combination of full-blown identity management, administration and compliance auditing for user management
Against: Nothing we found
Verdict: For large and growing mid-sized organisations, this is our top choice

Novell Identity Manager is a complete identity management system, a workflow system that simplifies both provisioning and binding users to objects, a compliance auditing system, single sign-on, a designer component that allows drag and drop development of policies and workflows and a user interface that is both comprehensive and easy to use.

We liked just about everything about Novell’s offering. From the initial deployment to the unique Designer module and the ability to build custom workflows for user self-provisioning, this product shines.

Deployment begins with the server and a basic set of modules. From that point on, virtually everything is set up using the Designer. However, there is a fairly complete set of modules that are pretty much ready to go with just a bit of modification for your particular environment. The user interface is intuitive and we found navigation easy.

We found that Identity Manager can perform well for just about any size enterprise, although we can see it being most useful in larger deployments. We would especially recommend this product for geographically distributed enterprises, particularly those with widely varying access-control requirements. The ability to build multiple workflows very quickly and simply lends itself to a variety of changing conditions within the same enterprise.

Documentation is superb. There are multiple manuals, each addressing a particular aspect or module. They are well organised and easy to use. Support, as well, is first rate. The dedicated website has everything from product downloads to documentation, user forums, application notes and white papers. We were able to find answers to just about any question we had on the product. There are support plans for almost every type of user.

With prices starting at £45,700 for the server and £15 per user it sounds expensive but, given the high quality and considerable functionality, this could be a bargain for a large enterprise, which is where we think this product belongs. That said, it is easily deployable for smaller firms and can be extended to support just about any level of growth.

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