Oracle tackles identity governance
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(InfoWorld) - Thereâs a common nightmare haunting CISOs (computer information security officers) that features a glance at the morning paper, and 72-point banner headlines with the name of their employer and the words âLOSTâ and âCUSTOMER DATA.â Thereâs no question about it: protecting customer and employee data is one of the thorniest problems facing enterprises today. Last week, Oracle took a swing at solving that problem, announcing the Identity Governance Framework, an initiative to develop specifications for sharing identity data across heterogeneous applications. The project has the support of identity and access management (IAM) vendors Ping Identity, Sun Microsystems, and Securent, as well as CA and Novell, according to Amit Jasuja, vice president of product development for Oracleâs security and identity management products. Problems such as lost data on laptops and identity theft point to the need for overarching standards that govern all the sensitive data squirreled away in data repositories across an enterprise, such as human resources, customer relationship management and custom-built internal applications, he said. IGF addresses that problem by establishing a governance model that allows organizations to create âcontractsâ between applications and repositories of identity data. The model would cover how data flows within an enterprise and outside the enterprise to supply chain or business partners, he said. Because the framework came together quickly, the real value of IGG will be determined in the coming weeks and months, as Oracle and its partners work to develop the specifications and transfer them to a standards group such as OASIS or the Liberty Alliance to manage, Bowen said. âItâs a good first step. It will get us closer to the goal line,â said Don Bowen, director of identity integration at Sun. âWill it get us into the end zone? I donât know.â
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The always provocative Brad Templeton, who hung out with a large cadre of geeks at the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW, or IIW2007) last week, has some cautions about new identity systems, even if they are all &quot;user-centric&quot;. These cautions lie in a paradox: &quot;The easier it is to give somebody ID information, the more often it will be done. And the easier it is to give ID information, the more palatable it is to ask for, or demand it.&quot; The italics are his.  Here he hits on the problem of market power asymmetries (vendors strong, customers weak) that have been with us for the whole Industrial Age, and are with us still. I think we have a way to overcome those, and that Brad's Paradox may provide exactly the conceptual hurdle we need to see before we can make progress. \
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Worker apathy about PDA security is putting corporate data in jeopardy. The storage of the names and addresses of corporate customers on PDAs is now common - but security practices are struggling to keep up with technology usage.
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Two open-source identity management projects said on Monday that they had achieved a key milestone in the development of open-source identity services that connect products regardless of maker or platform.
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It's part of Oracle's plan to focus on making enterprise management one of its core product offerings not just for Oracle environments, but across multivendor IT systems.
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There are some business stories that read like steamy novels. The torrid, and often sordid, affair that has been the imbroglio between database king Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and
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(InfoWorld) - Oracle is making a number of moves to improve access management and other security features for its users. The enterprise software maker said Wednesday that its Oracle Identity Management product is now certified to work with its E-Business Suite 12, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, and Siebel 8 applications. Oracle also said certification on its PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 applications is expected by June. Oracle also said that its Database Vault security product has been certified to run on PeopleSoft Enterprise applications. Database Vault is designed to protect against "insider threats" to data security by restricting who can access what data, where, when, and how. It is particularly focused on helping companies meet governance and compliance requirements. Oracle also introduced Oracle Management Pack for Identity Management, which it said helps reduce the cost and complexity of managing identity and access management systems. The Identity Management product is an enhancement of Oracle's Enterprise Manager 10g product. Its identity and access management functions work across multiple software brands and operating systems.
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InfoWorld - Oracle at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco the week of Dec. 5 plans to unveil Oracle Integration, a product that combines the company&#8217;s application server with several other technologies for integration and enablement of SOAs (service-oriented architectures).
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle is working on a tool to provide a complete life cycle for building, managing, and updating database applications, a company executive revealed at the Oracle OpenWorld conference here on Wednesday morning.
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Oracle plans to fix dozens of flaws in its software products next Tuesday, including critical bugs in the company&#39;s database, e-business suite, and application server.In its first security update of 2008, Oracle will ship 27 security fixes, some of which will affect several products. Oracle outlined some details of the upcoming patches in a pre-release announcement posted to the company&#39;s Web site Thursday afternoon.Oracle releases security patches every three months, a process known as the Critical Patch Update (CPU). January&#39;s bug-fix total is low by Oracle&#39;s standards. In October, the company&#160;patched 51 vulnerabilities.As usual, the company&#39;s database will be a major focus of the CPU. Oracle plans to ship eight security fixes for the Oracle Database, addressing bugs in the software&#39;s advanced queuing, core RDBMS (relational database management system), Oracle Agent, Oracle Spatial, and XML (Extensible Markup Language) database software.None of the database vulnerabilities can be exploited over a network without the attacker first obtaining a username and password for the database.Oracle&#39;s next most-patched product will be the E-Business Suite, which will receive seven updates, three of which are for bugs that can be remotely exploited by attackers who do not have usernames or passwords for the system.The Oracle Application Server will get six bug-fixes, addressing flaws in components such as the product&#39;s BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), Worklist Application, Oracle Forms, and Oracle Internet Directory software.Finally, Oracle is planning four updates for its PeopleSoft and JD Edwards products, as well as one fix each for Oracle Enterprise Manager and the Oracle Collaboration Suite.
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LONDON -- Enterprise software giant Oracle may be known for big plans and bold moves, but the Redwood Shores, California, company has realized it also has to think small.
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The possibility that Internet users may one day be able to safely use a single log-in and password for multiple web sites advanced Thursday. The OpenID Foundation, which is working to develop an identity-management system for the Web, announced that software giants Google, IBM, VeriSign and Yahoo have joined its executive board.
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Bites into identity management In July 2005, news emerged of Sun Microsystems' first foray into open source identity management with the Open Web Single Sign-On (OpenSSO) project.â¦
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Oracle has issued an alert regarding multiple security vulnerabilities discovered across an unsettlingly wide range of its products.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle at the OpenWorld conference here on Tuesday is making several product rollouts, including a new version of its database and grid computing enhancements.
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IBM's global services organization is adding "health check" services to its repertoire of technical services for SOA deployments, looking to assist users dealing with issues resulting from poor planning or partnerships with inexperienced or so-called proprietary IT vendors.The company also is offering its "identity-aware ESB," which is an enterprise service bus that combines existing IBM products to provide identity management capabilities.Health-check services and software will be offered in two workshops to be held at customer sites, featuring specialized diagnostics and triage capabilities to help identify potentially unhealthy areas and recommend cures for problem areas."We try to bring a real breadth of capability from the best practices that we've learned into these workshops," said Marie Wieck, vice president of middleware services at IBM.With some clients, IBM has had to perform somewhat of a rescue mission after clients have done an initial application and then had problems with scalability or performance, Wieck said.Workshops, which are priced in the $50,000 range or less, include IBM SOA Applications and Services and Healthcheck Workshop and Infrastructure Healthcheck Workshop for SOA. Both are 2.5-day engagements intended for midmarket and large enterprises.The applications and services workshop is intended to provide assurance that an SOA can expand beyond pilot projects. Factors such as application reuse and service use will be assessed, as will identification of rogue services as part of a governance policy. Security also will be checked for service controls and identity management.The infrastructure workshop features an assessment of infrastructure supporting applications and services layers in an SOA. Elements examined include infrastructure flexibility, the ability to adapt to spikes in demand, and verifying SOA configurations for connectivity. A service management review ensures that services are being monitored.IBM's identity-aware ESB combines WebSphere ESB products with Tivoli security and identity management software to help ensure that access to information, services, and applications is protected. Auditing of identity and access activity is enabled."Identity management is very critical so that you can ensure that only the right people get access to these services," Wieck said.An analyst briefed on IBM's efforts lauded both the SOA and ESB programs."Customers who have started with a SOA need checkpoints to have an outside source assess what they are doing and how it compares to best practices," said Judith Hurwitz, president of Hurwitz &amp; Associates. "Companies are investing a lot of money, resources, and political capital on SOA, and management wants to make sure they are on track and doing the right thing."Governance is a huge issue for customers in regards to SOA implementation. This is especially true since SOA is as much a business strategy as it is a technology strategy," Hurwitz said."In terms of ID-aware ESB ? clearly security and identity management are huge issues for companies because of governance issues related to security," she said.IBM offers information about its SOA programs at its Web site.Also on Monday, IBM is announcing an initiative to help business partners increase revenues and better serve customers. Grow Your Business (GYB) with IBM Software provides cross-brand sales scenarios across the IBM software group's product portfolio.The GYB tool recommends scenarios that utilize business partners' existing areas of expertise. Partners through the initiative can analyze software products, get descriptions of business value, and determine return on investment via an online tool. Information is aggregated into one place.An online guide to marketing and sales materials also is highlighted.
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An SSP (Software Subscription Provider) finds that it can best serve the information needs of its clients by building on the power, reliability, and scalability of Oracle technology.