Setting Goals

By setting goals, an organization defines where it wants to be after the Access Manager deployment is finished. The deployment strategy is to plan a roadmap for reaching these objectives and move towards it. Goals are created by defining the expectations of all involved and getting approval early in the process.

In general, an identity management solution enhances security and improves infrastructure manageability while decreasing costs. More specifically, some common goals (and their benefits) that Access Manager allows an organization to meet include:

• Implementation of a scalable infrastructure to meet the expected increase in digital identities (employees, partners, and customers).

• Consolidation of the creation and management of identity profiles with each group controlling their own data.

• Cost reduction through vendor consolidation, user self-management and related administration costs.

• Improvement of security through immediate identity profile termination.

• Improved transparency of security models and access rights.

• Condensing time required for access to critical systems.

• Removal of user rights to critical systems as roles or affiliation within the organization change.

Ultimately, these goals, combined with an understanding of the motivation of all groups involved and information gleaned from a site survey, can be used to design an infrastructure for the deployment. In addition, they can be used throughout the deployment process to keep interested parties engaged and encourage project endorsement.