A further result of their acquisition of Netegrity in November of 2004, the CA Identity Manager is a centralized platform that provides for the automated and/or workflow-based creation, management, and deletion of user identities (IDs, passwords, etc.) across multiple target systems.

In brief, the system allows for incoming account, access, or password change requests through automated data feeds or requests, delegated administrative personnel, or the end users themselves (through a browser-based GUI). Such changes then trigger administrator defined workflow processes in the CA Identity Manager, which can culminate in the processing of automated identity changes across multiple target systems. Built-in auditing features allow for the logging of all changes for later review and compliance purposes; and the audit logs themselves can be automatically sent to the vendor's eTrust Security Command Center.

The platform is able to drive identity changes to multiple target systems; some of those supported are systems including Windows NT/2000/2003, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, and AS/400; specific directories including Active Directory and Novell NDS/binderies; standard interfaces including LDAP and ODBC; databases including IBM DB/2, Oracle, and MS SQL Server; groupware including MS Exchange and Lotus Notes; and more. In addition to these directly supported target systems, the platform provides for the integration of 3rd party systems via a Web service interface and Java APIs.

Key features of the platform as noted by the vendor include the ability to delegate administrative tasks to specially assigned users; user self service tools for self management of profiles, entitlements and passwords, including specific password management capabilities such as forgotten password support, bi-directional password synchronization, GINA (Graphical Identification and Authentication) support, and automatic enforcement of periodic password changes; customizable and enforced workflow processes, including the ability to require managers to re-certify user entitlements to specific systems on a periodic basis; and integrated auditing capabilities with reporting.

Contact Computer Associates for further information.