2010 Identity Management In Review

It has been a busy year in Identity Management so I thought I would collect some of the major events that have impacted 2010. Security and Identity Management continue to be important drivers for organizations. I am not sure who exactly coined the term but security/identity management is definitely a "lifestyle" more than a product or release. The market and products continue to evolve to address top IT and consumer forces that are shaping security and business in 2010 and beyond. Here are just four of the key forces:

1. Cloud Computing
2. Social Media
3. Data Center Consolidation
4. Mobile Devices and Workforce

As a result, we had a very busy 2010 and made Identity Management an exciting segment of the IT market to work. Here are just a few of the events that shaped my world:

1. Oracle and Sun join forces in Identity Management, Feb. 2010. Oracle Directory Services Enterprise Edition and Oracle Identity Analytics are strategic projects.


2. Oracle Launches Security Newsletter with 22K initial readers, April 2010. The newsletter focuses on security news and products at Oracle.


3. Oracle Identity Management at Burton Catalyst 2010. This years show was fantastic but a little different as it was the first Burton Catalyst under Gartner. It contained great insight into the evolution of the industry and with the other tracts on Cloud, Collaboration and Data Center Management it had something for everyone. The show is scheduled to run in 2011 so we look forward to seeing it evolve.


4. Oracle Launches 11g for Identity Management, July 2010. The launch included new features for the entire identity management platform and specifically for the following products: Oracle Access Manager, Oracle Adaptive Access Manager and Oracle Identity Manager.


5. Oracle Directory Services Enterprise Edition and Oracle OpenSSO complete new releases which include new branding.


6. Launched a new blog focused on Identity Governance called Identity Expressions
   


7. Launched a new product in the Identity Governance category called Security Governor. This product will help verticals like Healthcare take a holistic approach to security and identity.


8. Oracle Open World had over 25 sessions on Identity Management with over 200 people attending the Identity Management Keynote.


9. Oracle acquires Passlogix. After a very successful OEM relationship Oracle acquired Passlogix and continues to offer the Enterprise Single Sign-on Suite to it's customers.

2011 should be a great year and the start to a great new decade. I can predict one thing for sure. The Identity Management market will continue to evolve as new security challenges and new IT and consumer forces impact our solutions. Identities are key to any valuable transaction for business, consumers, partners, etc. Data is dumb when it is just data. When it is tied to an Identity it is much smarter and many, many times more valuable. Just ask Facebook, Google, etc. Identity Management is about putting people and business in control and if we make it easy for business and people to manage and implement then Identity Management will be critical to their success.