Identity and Context Virtualization The Key to Your IdM Architecture

“Everything You Know About IdM Is Wrong”Neil McDonald, Gartner IAM Summit

Gartner: Contextual Virtual Identity

"By year-end 2009, 80 percent of organizations deploying IAM solutions will use virtual directory technology as part of the IAM infrastructure"

It’s About Virtualizing Both Identity and Context

“Virtual Directories: Valuable Present, Promising Future”Mark Diodati, Burton Group

Market Leader

“The Radiant Logic VDS product has been in the market for 8 years and is the leader in the virtual directory market”

Vision / Nirvana•A Single Secure Identity Service

–Seamless Authentication & Authorization

–Single point to provision access–Internal & External Users

•Levels of Authentication based upon risk•Easier access to user object data

Customer Implementation

Customer Implementation

Identity Architecture

Identity Management Service

IdM Access Services

Authentication User Object Data AccessAuthorization

ProvisioningEngineVirtual Directory

Enterprise Directory

MetaDirectoryAuthorization Manager

Authoritative Sources

Network Operating System

Active DirectoryFRB

Groupware / EmailNetwork

Operating SystemActive Directory

Board

Mainframe

HR Human Capital

Management System

Identity Provisioning

Virtualization Layer

Our Customers are our Best Testimonials

Identity and Context VirtualizationOne Infrastructure: Many Services

VDS

VDS

VDS

VDS

VDS

Different Virtual Directory views for different services

A common identityThe Virtual Identity Hub

ICS

Top 4 Common Use Cases for Identity and Context Virtualization

1. Authentication (WAM, Portal, SM, TAM, RSA, Ping)

a. Integrating identities: Internal vs. External, Employees/Customers…etc…b. The challenges and opportunities brought by Active Directory

• Multiple domains/forests

2. Authorization (Roles, Rules, SM, RSA,TAM, Policy Server)

a. The challenges and opportunities brought by Active Directoryb. Context are generally defined in applications that use databases

3. Delegated Administrationa. segregation of duties b. specialized contextual views

4. Global/Enterprise Information Server for structured data (moving from a directory as a context server)

Use Case: Authentication(Identity Union)

• Challenges:1. First step in authentication is identification (finding the user entry that

needs to authenticate)• Identities are spread across multiple data sources (e.g. multiple AD domains/forests…

etc)

• Identities are described differently in each source (e.g. FirstName vs. fname vs. givenName)

2. Second step is credentials checking. Each source supports its own authentication mechanism

• Different encryption of passwords and schema elements (userPassword vs. unicodePwd…etc).

• Existing internal user IDs, passwords in Active Directory

• External users credentials may be stored elsewhere (SunOne, Oracle…etc)

• Virtualization solves the authentication problem• Aggregating users from multiple data sources (allow applications to search one

common namespace to find the user)• Credentials checking can be handled at the virtual directory layer, or by the

underlying source (delegated authentication)

Three Main Challenges Associated with the Identification (Search) Phase of the Authentication

1. Locating the user where to search for them• If there is more than one place, the challenge becomes where to

search and in which order

2. Having a common representation of the user info • Schema conversion, objectclass and attributes mapping (e.g.

InetorgPerson in Sun vs. User in AD, vs person table in database)

3. Distinguishing between the different identifiers for the same person…. • LCallahan, LauraC…

Authentication Step 1: Identification

• Locate the user entry (based on who logs in)

Databases DirectoriesApplications

User information spread across multiple heterogeneous sources and stored differently

Example: Identification Challenges with Multiple Active Directory Forests/Domains

o=vds

ou=AD List

ou=AD3ou=AD2ou=AD1

dc=us

ou=internal

cn=novato_branch

Active Dir Domain 1

ou=sales ou=temps

dc=us.corp

ou=groups

Active Dir Domain 2

ou=Admin ou=Con

dc=cis

ou=dept

Active Dir Domain 3

ou=sales ou=mktg

VDS

Identification: Create an Aggregated List of User Entries

• Aggregation/linking establish a complete list of User Entries• All schemas are mapped to a common schema• All users can be found/identified in the virtual namespace

Aggregation vs. Integration: Union, Intersection (correlation where needed)

Reduced sign on is possible only if an identity exists (and has been be detected/correlated) across different security domains

Authentication Step 2: Credentials Checking

• Authentication Mechanism• Password encryptions

Databases DirectoriesApplications

Passwords encrypted using custom algorithm

Passwords encrypted using

SSHA

Passwords encrypted using custom algorithm

Authentication Step 2: Credential Checking

• Multiple authentication mechanisms supported

Delegated authentication – bind request will be sent to underlying directory for processing

Custom scripting to leverage the appropriate encryption algorithm

Client

Authentication Request

Example: Proxy Authentication Back to the Right Active Directory Domain Controller in a Specific Forest

Client

Authentication Request

AD

unicodePwd

sAMAccountName

Authentication request forwarded to Active Directory

VDS

RE-USE existing users +

credentials!

Fifth Third Bank | All Rights Reserved7

CRM Mobius 5/3 Direct 53.comRemote

WireHR Direct Other Apps

Application Layer

Directory Adaptor / Common Interfaces RSA ClearTrust Web Access Management (WAM)

Enterprise Directory (Sun)

VDS (Radiant)

Provisioning Engine (BMC)

RAFT Top SecretAD Data WarehousePrimary Identity Store

Workflow / Provisioning

Application Access Points

Identity Management (IdM) Technology Stack

Virtual Directory Services (VDS) Provisioning Engine

Enterprise Directory (ED)

Use Case: Authorization(Join)

• Challenges:• Profile information exists in multiple data sources• Data sources have their own schema elements

• Attributes are different and stored differently• Each source has its own schema (e.g. user – AD vs. inetOrgPerson – Sun vs.

Employee table – Oracle)• Attributes

– memberOf (AD) – groupOfNames (eDirectory)– posixGroup (OpenLDAP)

• Inflexible schema extensions (AD)

• Virtualization solves the authorization problem• Provides a common schema that all sources can map to• Aggregates profile information which provides more context about a

user• Web access management products can base policy decisions on the

information available in the VDS• More attributes available = more fine-grained policies possible

Deployment Details: Schema Extensions

USER OBJECT

email password

memberOfdept

EXTUSER OBJECT

loginShell

uidNumber home directory

AD

Client

(e.g. TAM – requires schema extensions, integrating UNIX/AD – posix attributes…etc)

Access AD attributes plus the required extended attributes

Build a Complete Profile

• Join – build a complete, unique profile from information in all data sources

cn = Laura Callahan mail=laura@rli.com title=Sales Manager employeeID=8

FullName = Laura Callahan ProjectID=2019 UserID=8

First_Name = Laura Last_Name = Callahan Department = Sales EmployeeNo=8

FullName = Laura Callahan mail=laura@rli.com title=Sales Manager employeeID=8 ProjectID=2019 Department=Sales

Client

Can base authorization on complete profile

Customer Implementation

Virtual Directory Role• Central location for user authentication, roles,

and authorization• Virtualization of a single user identity across all

systems• Synchronization of real- time application user

identity changes

Application Web Server

SiteMinderWeb Agent

SiteMinderCookie Provider

(Web Agent)

Web Browser

SiteMinderPolicy Server

App1 User Store

App4 User Store

App2 User Store

App3 User Store

RadiantOneVirtual

Directory

Use Case: Delivering Data in Context

• Challenge:• For Delegated Administration

• Existing hierarchies are relatively flat – making them easier to maintain and manage.

• However, this limits the usefulness of delegated administration– Delegated administration requires a hierarchy based on how you want to

delegate

• How does a virtualization layer deliver data in context?• Reconfigure existing directory trees to make more

meaningful views for delegated administration• Based on the data available in the entries, different hierarchies are

possible (e.g. based on: Country -> State -> City, Management (org chart), Job Description…etc)

Virtual View Based on Location

CountryState

City

Virtual View Based on Org Chart

Top Manager

Full Management Hierarchy

Virtual View Based on Role, Location and Territory

RoleLocation

Territory

Use Case: Global Directory and Enterprise search

• Problems:• Mergers and Acquisitions result in numerous enterprise

directories/databases that require integration/aggregation• Active Directory

• HR Systems

• Customer databases

• Often times, applications that consume data can only connect to a single directory

• How does a virtualization layer help build a Global/Enterprise Directory?• Aggregate multiple data sources into a common directory namespace• No changes (to schema or data) required in the underlying directories• Fast implementation and configuration

• Re-use existing data rather than rebuild a new directory where data is synchronized into.

Customer Implementation

Abstraction Layers

Aggregate Existing Data Sources

Help DeskERP HR Knowledge

Management White PagesCRM

Client

“Talk” to a single directorydc=Global Directory

Data Sources with Common Users (with existing common key)

• With unique common key• Joins based on common key

cn = Laura Callahan mail=laura@rli.com title=Sales Manager employeeID=8

FullName = Laura Callahan ProjectID=2019 UserID=8

First_Name = Laura Last_Name = Callahan Department = Sales EmployeeNo=8

FullName = Laura Callahan mail=laura@rli.com title=Sales Manager employeeID=8 ProjectID=2019 Department=Sales

Data Sources with Common Users (NO Existing Common Key)

Without unique common key• Virtualization alone cannot detect duplicate users• Requires Identity correlation and reconciliation• Matching rules to determine common users across the sources

HR

Accounting

CRM

Global Identity Hub

Reference/pointers

Data Sources Matching Rules Global Directory Entry

Customer Implementation

Initial ProblemCOI’ s did not have an ability to reach across the disparate agencies and networks to

find contact and profile information

As in all cases where information needed to be accessed from varying sources – data ownership, security, and privacy were the largest hurdles.

Customer Implementation

Approach Create a unified virtual directory where it was easy to get buy in from the disparate data

owners.

The primary ‘ selling points’ were:

– Capability : Users would be able to search for personal contact information across organizations and domains, previously unavailable.

– Data Ownership : The solution allowed the owners of the disparate identity repositories to remain the autonomous authoritative source. Read only access rights were requested to identity repositories.

– Data Virtualization : Data would not be synchronized, i.e. replicated or copied. Synchronization would be difficult to deploy and maintain. Further, a latency may exist introducing uncertainty surrounding currency of information.