What is Identity Management?
Identity management is the process by which user identities are defined and managed in an enterprise environment. Specifically, identity management describes the process by which: User identities are provisioned and coordinated. Application provisioning is automated. User roles, privileges, and credentials are managed. Administrators delegate responsibility. Administrators deploy applications easily and securely. Users self-manage their preferences and passwords. Users have single sign-on access. Steps in the security lifecycle include account creation, suspension, privilege modification, and account deletion. An identity management system can include users outside an enterprise, such as customers, trading partners, or Web services, as well as users inside an organization. In addition, an identity management system can manage network entities other than users, such as devices, processes, and applications.
Identity management is a term that refers broadly to the administration of individual identities within a system, such as a company, a network or even a country. In enterprise IT, identity management is about establishing and managing the roles and access privileges of individual network users. ID management systems provide IT managers with tools and technologies for controlling user access to critical information within an organization. The core objective of an ID management system in a corporate setting is this: one identity per individual. But once that digital ID has been established, it has to be maintained, modified and monitored throughout what has been called the “access lifecycle.” So ID management systems provide administrators with the tools and technologies to change a user’s role, to track user activities and to enforce policies on an ongoing basis. These systems are designed to provide a means of administering user access across an entire enterprise and to ensure complian
Identity management (IdM) is a comprehensive set of processes that enable the secure access of end users to a broad range of internal and external IT systems, control the digital identity of those users, and manage information about those identities. In general, digital identities comprise electronic records that represent network principals, including people, machines, devices, applications, and services [Burton Group Research Overview 2003]. Another definition is: Identity management comprises the set of business processes (and supporting infrastructure) that enable the creation, maintenance, and use of digital identities within a legal and policy context [EDUCAUSE Quarterly 2003]. IdM plays an important role in an information system. Companies often have a broad variety of systems and platforms. Their users’ digital identities are spread over their IT infrastructure, yet are not necessarily synchronized across all systems and applications. Many companies often invest a good amount o
