Exploring Identity Management

Identity management is the concept of centralizing the control of resource provisioning and system access. Leveraging human resources software, corporate directories, and centralized servers, it provides large enterprises with the means to initiate workflow for automatically allocating and de-allocating physical and computing resources to users. Poor or no identity management can open many security holes and this class of software, combined with effective policy, promises to counter these vulnerabilities. Some software solutions cover all areas of identity management while others only address a specific concern. This document aims to provide a guide to the various ways it can be implemented and show how identity management can lead to improved security.