MANAGING IDENTITIES IN THE CLOUD

MANAGING IDENTITIES IN THE CLOUD

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University educates more than 35,000

FEDERATED SERVICES MAXIMIZE OPTIONS

students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at Next up, according to Fisher, is cross-domain user access with Oracle residential campuses in Prescott, Arizona, and Daytona Beach,

Identity Federation 11g, a multiprotocol federation server that will Florida; through its worldwide campus at more than 170 centers in

extend the university’s existing identity and access-management the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East; and through

systems. “LDAP authentication is a good first-generation online learning. This diverse and geographically dispersed learning

solution, but we’re interested in using SAML to support federated environment challenges the IT department to provide secure access

authentication,” he says. With Oracle Identity Federation 11g, the to campus services and applications as well as to meet student and

university will be able to securely share identities among vendors employee demands for online self-service functionality.

and hosting models without increasing the cost of managing, “Oracle Identity Management Suite doesn’t care where a server

maintaining, and administering user identities and credentials. is located,” says Fisher. “By utilizing this Oracle software, we have

Embry-Riddle also plans to use Oracle Access Manager been able to implement a single-sign-on solution to our hosted

to centralize its single sign-on process so it can more easily e-mail service and several other applications, both on premises and

accommodate additional information systems and applications, off. Within a couple of milliseconds, Oracle can create, update, and

both on premises and off. “If a particular department comes to us manage user accounts just as we do for our internal directory.”

with a new vended application, Oracle gives us a lot of different ways

he university used Oracle Identity Management to streamline

that we can manage accounts,” Fisher says.

authentication for its public cloud–based e-mail service. “We This flexibility also maximizes the effectiveness of the university’s use Oracle Identity Management to create and manage all the

IT staff since it means they can outsource responsibility for third- accounts in real time on this cloud system, and we use a token

party applications along with much of their routine maintenance, API mechanism written for Oracle Portal to provide single sign-on,”

leaving the IT team to focus on issues of strategic importance. Fisher says Fisher. Students can log in to the university portal, click on a

cites the university’s learning management system as an example. link, and be placed into their e-mail accounts

The system is hosted and managed by an without presenting another credential. “This

application service provider, but Embry- virtual infrastructure minimizes the amount

Riddle’s users can access it directly through of support calls we receive from people trying

SNAPSHOTS

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

the university portal.

to access their mail,” Fisher adds.

“Clearly, the application service provider The new identity management system

erau.edu

knows its software better than we do, so replaces a manual process for implementing

Location: Prescott, Arizona, and Daytona

we prefer to let it handle upgrades and so nearly 2,000 account changes each day, Industry: Education and research

Beach, Florida

forth,” Fisher says. “Once you have worked which previously took at least 24 hours

Employees: 4,310

out issues of identity and access control, to complete and resulted in a delay in

Oracle products: Oracle Identity and

obtaining services from a public cloud can delivering updates to students. Fisher’s team

Access Management Suite, Oracle Identity

be very cost effective. The cloud provider now spends about 30 minutes per day on

Management, Oracle Access Manager, Oracle

already has the facilities, the bandwidth, the these activities. The Oracle software has also Oracle Virtual Directory, Oracle Database,

Identity Manager, Oracle Internet Directory,

data storage—all of which we would have decreased the number of account-related

Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Portal

to duplicate ourselves to provide that same help desk calls by 40 percent, thanks to

service. Oracle has opened the door for us to the improved self-service options available

Advanced Innovations

utilize a lot more of these types of services in through Oracle Identity Manager.

advancedinnovationsinc.com

Location: Limerick, Ireland

the future.”

In addition, the university uses Oracle Industry: Supply chain management

Employees: 40

Virtual Directory to provide account and

Oracle products: Oracle Database, MySQL,

EVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY

authentication services for its cloud-based

Public and private clouds are enabled antispam solution, as well as for hosted

Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebCenter, Oracle

by proven Oracle technologies that have applications such as a flight management

enterprise collaboration, Agile product lifecycle

been evolving for years: grid computing, system, self-help/help desk system, Suite, Oracle business intelligence solutions virtualization, SOA, and management

management applications, Oracle E-Business

ORACLE MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2010