IBM Extends Reach Of Single Sign-on For Tivoli Access Manager Resellers

Scheduled to ship in about two weeks, the new Tivoli Federated Identity Manager will support a broader range of standards, enabling a further extension of trusted partner networks that link Web services, said Joe Anthony, director of identity management for IBM Software's Tivoli group, based in Austin, Texas.

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), WS-Federation, WS-Security and WS-Trust standards are each supported by Tivoli Federated Identity Manager, which will also support the Sun Microsystems-led Liberty initiative, Anthony said.

"Some people define Federated ID products as something that just supports SAML, but to us that was just a token assertion of how you link businesses using single sign-on," he said. "This federation technology will make it easier for partners and solution providers to integrate their ecosystems together." As an example, Anthony cited a company's need to allow employee access to 401(k) balances, the status of health insurance claims and other information that may be housed outside the corporate firewall but must be accessed securely. "Until now, when you thought of single sign-on, you thought about it being inside a company. This extends beyond that," he said.

Upselling existing Tivoli Access Manager customers into the new Federated ID offering is a key strategy IBM is presenting to resellers. Anthony said there are about 1,500 Access Manager customers today, "a great base to upgrade."

An even richer opportunity for Tivoli Federated Identity Manager resellers exists in linking the disparate networks of companies newly joined at the hip due to mergers and acquisitions, said Michael Roy, president of Blue World Information Technology, a security-centric IBM VAR in Seattle. "We've seen a lot of companies grow very quickly through acquisitions, and this is how you plug them together," he said.

Because a Federated ID community allows access to many different networks at once, security is paramount, so IBM is engaging several business partners to strengthen the software's defenses. One such partner, Sarvega, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., is adding XML threat prevention to Tivoli Federated Identity Manager, said Blake Dournaee, product manager at Sarvega.