Provisioning Tool Choices

Several tools are available to perform the provisioning of users for portal services. These tools are described briefly, from the highest level, most general tools to the lowest level, most specific tools:

• Identity Manager

  Identity Manager is a set of tools that enable you to automate the provisioning and management of users in multiple user repositories. It can be used to provision an LDAP repository such as Directory Server using, for example, a data feed from a corporate human resources database. It provides users with a central password administrative service, and allows user credentials to be added to or removed from all applications when a new user joins or leaves a company. This tool is most likely to be used to provision users for portal services if Identity Manager is already being used company-wide as user provisioning and management framework.

• Delegated Administrator

  Delegated Administrator provisions users for Messaging Server and Calendar Server. Because Delegated Administrator is Access Manager-based, it offers the ability to provision portal service users as well. Delegated Administrator is most likely be used to provision users for portal services at sites that have a combination of portal, messaging, and calendar services, such as Telcos.

• Access Manager tools

  Access Manager provides both GUI and command-line tools to provision users for Access Manager services, such as portal and related services. These tools are the simplest way of provisioning users if only Portal Server and Access Manager are used in a deployed solution. These tools are described in more detail in Access Manager Provisioning Tools.

• Directory-level commands

  Directory-level commands such as ldapmodify can be used to add user entries to an LDAP directory. At this level, the directory is not aware of Access Manager or Portal Server. All object and attribute creation must be performed manually.