Products - PresenceID Overview
PresenceID is a new identity services solution designed for today’s distributed loosely coupled computing environments. The PresenceID Unified Identity Services platform facilitates distributed identity management by providing identity integration, synchronization, provisioning, virtualization and auditing across and outside the entire enterprise. With PresenceID all network, client-server, open-source, virtualization, SOA mashup, SaaS, cloud computing and mainframe solutions operate within a common identity framework. It leverages and enhances your current patchwork of identity silos by integrating and synchronizing across all, using both open standard and native APIs, while embracing existing lifecycle, workflow, policy and access management. It greatly improves enterprise and endpoint security while significantly lowering identity integration complexity, administration and compliance costs and risk.
Identity is inherent in all computing systems. Users, groups, files, applications and services all have identity defined by attributes (who, what, and where) and attribute relationships across the organization. All computing systems such as networks, applications and services, create, edit and terminate identity as an integral part of their functionality. Typically systems distributed across an enterprise are purchased, used and maintained by the business units responsible for the various business processes each automates. Identities and transactions for each system are specific to the processes they are designed to automate. While these systems have common identity attributes, most often only a small percentage of all identity attributes are common for any identity, leaving most attributes unique to specific systems.
Traditional identity management (IdM/IAM) solutions were designed for pre-Internet architectures that impose hierarchical horizontal control and management of identity across vertical business processes and relationships. This makes identity integration and synchronization difficult because forcing network and server identity management from several sources into a single organizational view creates conflicts with their respective business process logic, workflows, policies and security from several perspectives which are not easily, reliably or inexpensively resolved. Even with LDAP, AD, meta-directory or virtual-directory services it remains very costly in time, human resources and money to integrate, synchronize and maintain because they are at cross purposes.
PresenceID is designed from conception for reliable and secure distributed unified identity and service delivery to loosely couple systems across the enterprise. It does not impose an authoritative identity system on existing business solutions, but rather existing business systems maintain authority over identity within their respective domains. Each system retains control over to whom and how entitlements are granted to resources. PresenceID leverages existing business process oriented identity lifecycle, policy, workflow and access management at the business system level, while provisioning, synchronizing, virtualizing and auditing identity across and between enterprises to loosely couple users and resources. PresenceID manages the myriad of relationships between identity attributes of distributed systems while allowing individual business process systems to locally manage identities within their respective domains. PresenceID facilitates ITIL and other frameworks for operational and compliance reporting processes.
PresenceID identity services provide an identity platform to route identity attributes, entitlements and relationships between distributed systems to loosely couple them. It delivers "Identity-as-a-Service" in a SOA to easily integrate identity across and outside the entire enterprise. PresenceID effectively organizes authenticated users and authorized resources and content into identity-based networks. It integrates identity management functions and processes of existing solutions with a unique self-healing reference platform that effectively creates networks of authenticated users and authorized services by reliably and securely routing identity relationships. It provides your enterprise with an "identity dial tone."
PresenceID provides a unified (aggregated) set of each user’s entitlements, attributes and relationships (“unified identity”). When identity is unified, all identities in a distributed network of systems have accurate and reliable presence with every resource to which they are entitled. PresenceID introduces Unified Identity Presence, a new organizing framework and best practice that is identity-centric, rather than server-centric. PresenceID is built around patent pending relational PresenceID Reference Data Object (RDO) technology that aggregates, synchronizes and virtualizes a superset of all user and content (files, applications and services) attributes (characteristics, roles, relationships and entitlements) distributed across heterogeneous systems for each specific identity. It maps between different attribute values that have the same definition; “zip code” and “postal code” for example. This allows loosely coupled systems with very dissimilar data structures and relationships to benefit from a relational architecture that transparently provisions and updates identity attributes and relationships dynamically.
PresenceID also provides unique new patent-pending identity data integrity and auto-correction capabilities to ensure identity data from all sources is aggregated and maintained as a reliable identity reference platform. Identity Self-Healing relational technology automatically repairs attribute relationship changes (database “keys”) to maintain integrity, recover from bad entries, and provide rapid disaster recovery. It also intelligently normalizes identities to remove duplicates according to rules you define. Efficient cue management of provisioning and synchronization messages ensures that only the most recent attribute changes are provisioned and synchronized, and that systems that have been off-line for maintenance, network communication or power failure get updated.
PresenceID also provides unique new on-demand delivery to users via personal virtual directories. PresenceID Personal Virtual Directories (PVD) are a comprehensive, dynamic and user-friendly tree listing all applications, files and services each user is authorized for, and simply clicks on to access. PVD are easily accessed via a bookmark in the user’s Web browser and greatly increase enterprise and endpoint access control, data loss prevention security, and compliance because users only access provisioned content and services; not entire directories to explore and access unauthorized resources.
The PresenceID platform consists of PresenceID Hub Manager servers connected by PresenceID Spoke Manager connectors to systems across the enterprise. Use of industry standard database access (SQL), application server platform (Java), service oriented architecture (SOA), data and communication (XML & SOAP), security (SSL), Web presentation (XHTML), and existing system and resource APIs ensures easy deployment, administration and cost containment. PresenceID greatly facilitates effective server virtualization with VMware, Xen and KVM. It also greatly simplifies storage and compliance. Simple SQL access to the RDO data store ensures easy and accurate storage aggregation and compliance reporting of who has access to what. PresenceID can even provision batch files as services, based on a users entitlements, roles, and group memberships, making it possible to execute applications that normally may not be able to be provisioned in an SOA environment without significant investment and customization.
PresenceID is licensed as subscription by the number of users, and invoiced on a monthly basis. Use as many Spoke Managers as you need. Support and upgrades are included during the subscription period. Professional services are available for deployment and customization of Spoke Manager connectors and Hub Manager servers for your specific needs.
PresenceID is the missing piece that turns identity into a strategic advantage. It allows mid-market and large enterprise, data center, healthcare, financial, government, defense and education environments to more easily be secured, integrated, managed and migrated. All your network, custom application, open-source, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, salesforce.com, BlackBerry and other solutions work together as a well oiled machine. Talk with a PresenceID representative today.