IBM today is updating their Tivoli Identity Manager (TIM) to version 5.1 -- this is an application that I last looked at in 2007 when TIM 5.0 was released. I took a briefing from Joe Anthony, program director, security and compliance management at IBM, who explained to me what's new in this point update, which Anthony referred to as a "major" update.

TIM 5.1 adds role management capabilities so enterprises can more accurately separate duties and management. There are also improvements around access certification and re-certification -- which are especially important in the current economy with staff changes occurring more frequently than ever before.

For IBM, TIM 5.1 is just one part of a holistic view of identity and access management, which is a theme that IBM was pitching to my colleague Alex Goldman during the RSA conference time frame earlier this year.

The Center for Applied Identity Management Research (CAIMR) today announced that Symantec Corp., the global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions, has joined the organization at the Partner level. Laura Garcia-Manrique, Symantec's Vice President, Consumer Online Services, will serve on CAIMR's Board of Directors, providing valuable insight into the organization's future identity management research initiatives.

Launched in October 2008, CAIMR is a trusted public-private partnership of cross-disciplinary experts focused on conducting applied research that addresses current and future identity management challenges in order to provide real-world solutions. Those societal challenges include cyber crime, identity theft and fraud, attacks on critical infrastructure systems, data breaches, financial crimes and more, that impact individuals, public safety, commerce, government and national security. CAIMR will identify these key identity management challenges and the existing gaps in knowledge surrounding them in order to provide the much-needed applied research to properly address them.

The Kantara Initiative, an umbrella organization formed to address interoperability issues in identity management products and schemes, was launched today by more than 45 companies and other industry organizations.

The organization will provide a venue for cooperation in developing interoperable technologies and practices to help enable identity-based applications and interactive services. Although standards-based technologies for defining and authenticating the identity of online users already exist, a lack of interoperability between the schemes has become a stumbling block with the rapid adoption of online applications and tools such as cloud computing, Web 2.0 and social networking sites.

"There is a need for a separate, more nimble approach to the identity management space," said Roger Sullivan, vice president of Oracle identity Management, who has been elected president of Kantara's board of trustees.

The intention to form the new organization was announced earlier this year with the call for members during an identity management workshop in April. The new organization will counter a perception of competition between different ID management technologies that has encouraged development of stovepipe technologies and hindered the growth of the field.

Courion(R) Corporation, leaders in access governance, provisioning and compliance, today announced the expansion of its research and development operations with the addition of a new India Technology Center in Pune, India. Following on the heels of record financial performance in Fiscal Year 2008 and Q1 2009, Courion's India Technology Center (ITC) will help meet increased customer demand by complementing the company's existing research and development capabilities.

In addition to its focus on Courion's Access Assurance Suite of applications, the ITC will expand the company's industry-leading library of connectors that integrate more than 160 applications by doubling that number by the end of next year, further improving support for specific industries such as healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and others.

Courion connectors are unique in the industry in several key respects. Where other identity management systems might typically use connectors just for provisioning (add/create/delete/query), Courion connectors provide a wide range of services, including authentication, notification, policy, trigger and reset. And Courion's connectors are light-weight, without extensive business logic, making it easier to modify and update them to meet changing industry requirements. Courion offers connectors for a wide range of platforms, including operating systems (desktop PCs, servers, mainframes), directories, networks, databases, security systems, help desks, middleware, and packaged enterprise applications, such as ERP.

If you do not think that OpenID or LDAP is a good solution for your Identity Management solution, you might want to take a look at SAML.

I was triggered to look at SAML again beacuse a very old fature request (2003, nid 1575) was re-opened regarding having SAML in Drupal core. I think it would be a great add-on to have this in core, yet most will think it should be contrib. And the fact is that for most users SAML (endpoint) is not needed and it makes sense to have it in contrib. For a long time, the module that came the closest to this was shib auth; user authentication with Shibboleth.

Now I found a module, hosted outside drupal.org that gives the power of SAML to Drupal at https://ow.feide.no/simplesamlphp:drupal