Product Report: Sun Identity Manager

Sun Identity Manager is one of the most well-known products in the Enterprise Provisioning market segment. The product has been continuously improved over the course of the last years, with significant changes especially within the last two releases (7.0 and 8.0). It supports all core features we expect from products in that market segment, with strong provisioning capabilities and a broad set of connectors.

The biggest shortcoming from our perspective is that changes in the user interfaces and to workflows might become relatively complex, requiring XML and Java knowledge and the use of the (well-integrated) IDE. Anyhow, the platform provides a high degree of flexibility and is feature-rich.

A specific strength of the product is the tight integration with Sun Role Manager, despite the fact, that the architecture and user interfaces of these both tools aren’t fully synchronized yet. The integration provides a strong level of GRC capabilities going well beyond what Sun Identity Manager offers as out-of-the-box support for GRC features.

From the perspective of Kuppinger Cole, Sun Identity Manager is amongst the leading-edge products in the Enterprise Provisioning market segment. Thus it should be part of evaluations when choosing provisioning products.