Jackson, in discussing the demise retrenchment of HP’s identity business, had this little gem:
We talk about Identity 2.0 in the context of Web services and the evolution of digital identity but our infrastructure, enterprise identity “stuff” is decrepit and falling apart. I have visions of identity leprosy with this bit and that bit simply falling off because it was never built with Web services in mind.
Bits falling of, eh? I’ve never heard of someone losing their core directory services because someone forgot to add XACML support. I’ve also never heard off someone loosing an ear because their provisioning system didn’t support SPML v2. Enterprise identity “stuff” is more like a zombie. It lurks in the dark corners of your enterprise. It staggers out at you at inopportune moments. Two other aspects of this ridiculous image that are valid:
- The identity zombie is incredibly hard to kill.
- The identity zombie needs BRAINS!
“They stab with their steely knives…” Once deployed, even in rudimentary forms, enterprise identity systems are amazing difficult to uproot, to kill. Homegrown systems are notoriously tough to maintain as well as replace. Even worse were those early attempts at vendor provided solutions. Before IBM/Tivoli bought Access360, it had Tivoli User Administrator. TUA… one of the banes of my existence. The thing wouldn’t die. The customers who got it running were actually in love the rotting smelly thing. They kept it on a steady diet of scripts (BRAINS!) that served as connector definitions and entitlements all rolled into one. It just ran and ran and ran. From what I heard, early BMC Control/SA customers are much the same.
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