Profiling a Standard Resource Adapter

Use the following information to create a profile and define prerequisites for a standard resource adapter:

• Select an Identity Manager adapter file that most closely resembles the resource type to which you are connecting.

  See Table 9–12 for a brief description of the default Identity Manager resource adapter files supplied with a standard Identity Manager configuration.

• Research user account characteristics and how these tasks are performed on the remote resource:

  • Authenticate access to the remote resource

  • Update users

  • Get details about the changed users

  • List all users on the system

  • List other system objects, such as groups, that are used in the listAllObjects method

• Identify the minimum attributes needed to perform an action and all supported attributes.

• Verify that you have the appropriate tools to support connection to the resource.

  Many resources ship with a published set of APIs or a complete toolkit that can be used to integrate outside applications to the resource. Determine whether your resource has a set of APIs or whether the toolkit provides documentation and tools to speed up integration with Identity Manager. For example, you must connect to a database through JDBC.

• Determine who can log in and search for users on the resource

  Most resource adapters require and run an administrative account to perform tasks such as searching for users and retrieving attributes. This account is typically a highly privileged or super user account, but can be a delegated administration account with read-only access.

• Determine whether you can extend the resource’s built-in attributes.

  For example, Active Directory and LDAP both allow you to create extended schema attributes, which are attributes other than the standard Identity Manager attributes.

  Decide which attributes you want to maintain in Identity Manager, determine what the attribute names are on the resource, and decide what to name the attributes in Identity Manager. These attribute names go in the schema map and are used as inputs to forms that are used to create a resource of that type.