Businesses Get Tools To Manage Access RightsBusinesses Get Tools To Manage Access Rights

It's difficult and costly for companies with thousands of employees and scores of applications to give the right people access to the proper IT systems, while ensuring that the wrong people don't gain access to anything. It's even more challenging when customers and partners need access to your systems.

As more businesses adopt some form of identity-management software, vendors are rolling out enhancements to make it easier to add and delete user-access rights. IBM this week will introduce an upgrade to its IdentityManager application, which comes with WebSphere, DB2 database, and Directory Server. BMC Software Inc. is expected to reveal that its popular Control-SA provisioning app now supports Lightweight Directory Access Protocol commands to access user information stored in its repository, a move the company says enhances reporting and auditing functions. And identity-management vendor Netegrity Inc. says it has licensed technology from provisioning software maker Business Layers Inc. so its customers can more easily set up user accounts, hardware, and software.

Many companies have databases with information on employee identities, authorizations, and application-access rights. That's driving the push to merge that data and those apps into a single system. "You're going to see closer integration, partnerships, and consolidation among ID-management and provisioning companies," says Cate Quirk, research analyst at AMR Research. Vendors are responding to customer demand, Quirk says. "IT managers are starting to look at identity management and how they'll better manage users and open their apps to partners."