Review: Sun Identity Manager

For: Automated identity management with a focus on compliance and auditing
Against: A bit tricky to install and expensive to buy
Verdict: A good tool from a venerable company; can get pricey but worth the price in very large implementations

The Sun Identity Manager is designed to play at a high level in a large environment. It focuses on creating and managing provisioning workflows quickly and easily, as well as helping with auditing and compliance.

The feature set of this product includes the usual identity management features, but expands more towards auditing and compliance with a powerful policy engine and a compliance dashboard that can help quickly remediate policy violations.

We found this product to be fairly easy to use. Installation was a bit tricky as there were many parts and pieces to install and configure, but once the system is up and running everything is quite intuitive. The automated workflow screen was also simple and intuitive to use.

Workflows can be created in two ways. One option is to code from scratch. However, for someone who is not quite so technical, there is a drag-and-drop-based screen that makes creating accurate and complete workflows quick and simple. We also found it easy to find and terminate orphaned accounts and properly disable them.

This system is at the high end of the performance spectrum. It is designed to integrate well with the existing environment and streamlines user identity management. With support for millions of users, including extranet users, this product is designed with the large enterprise in mind.

The first of two supplied PDF guides covers installation quite well and lays out the required steps in an easy-to-follow manner. The other manual is the administration guide, which is easy to understand, nicely organised and includes many examples and screenshots for further understanding of feature sets.

Sun offers several support plans for customers. Included in these support packages are various features such as phone and email support, training and updates and upgrades. Sun also offers customised support so customers can get exactly what they need.

With prices starting at around £26 per user for a single-year subscription we find this product to be average value for money. This can become expensive for larger environments, but you do get some excellent functionality.

identitymanagersecuritysun