CA is unveiling the next phase of its identity and access management strategy with new releases designed to strengthen certification and compliance reporting for enterprises.
The company June 9 announced plans for three products-CA Identity Manager, CA Access Control and CA Security Compliance Manager-as part of the CA Identity Access Manager release 12. The three products join others announced late last year by CA as part of an effort to expand its identity access product line.
CA’s move follows similar investments by other identity and access vendors. IBM recently released a new version of its federated identity management software, while officials with Sun Microsystems earlier this year said they were planning a number of releases across the company’s identity management portfolio during the next several months.
According to a recent report by Forrester Research, the IAM (identity and access management) market will grow to $12.3 billion by 2014, with provisioning accounting for nearly two-thirds of all IAM revenues.
CA has its eyes on that market. With CA Security Compliance Manager, the company has included a process-centric certification engine that can identify changes in entitlements, roles, user titles, cost center or account access.
“This product automates that certification process and enables the continuos attestation that companies are looking for,” said Lina Liberti, vice president of security management at CA. “This product enables you to do the certification, but then continuously do that certification on whatever timeframe the company has deemed necessary to adhere to the regulations they have identified as important for their business.”
Security Compliance Manager also features remediation capabilities and the ability to report on orphaned and inactive accounts. Enhanced reporting was also a focus of CA Access Control 12, which allows for data feeds to third-party relational data base management systems for additional custom reporting. CA has also included a number of out-of-the-box policy reports.
Another key element of the release is the ability to manage access to virtualized environments. CA has extended support to VMware ESX, Sun Solaris 10 Zones, Microsoft Virtual Server, Linux Xen, IBM AIX LPAR, HP-UX vPar and z/VM.
“We wanted the virtualization coverage so as companies are leveraging virtualization to extend the use of their servers, this product helps them maintain the level of security they’re used to,” Liberti said.
Most of the enhancements to CA Identity Manager are around easing deployment, including more granular provisioning and automation controls to help improve administration and expanded reporting abilities.
The CA Access Control and Security Compliance Manager products are available immediately, and the company plans to roll out Identity Manager in roughly 30 days, according to CA officials.