Organisations are rapidly shifting their identity and access management (IAM) efforts from a tactical focus on administration to a strategic focus on intelligence, according to Gartner, Inc.
"The need to limit costs and deliver real world business results is forcing IAM professionals to take a more strategic approach to IAM," said Ant Allan, research vice president at Gartner. "With this in mind, we have developed a set of key predictions for 2011 and beyond to aid chief information security officers (CISOs) and other IAM stakeholders when allocating resources and selecting IAM products and services."
By 2014, notable project failures will cause 50 per cent of organisations to shift their IAM efforts to intelligence, rather than administration.
Focusing IAM projects on intelligence - monitoring, log collection, correlation, analytics and reporting - ensures that identity and access intelligence (IAI) tools can deliver quick answers to business questions. Organisations that fail to adopt a formal and effective approach to delivering IAM with IAI will continue to experience delivery challenges as the business places less emphasis on IT's need for operations efficiency and more emphasis on the organisation's needs for accountability and reliability of access.
Analysts recommend that organisations insist that IAM vendors provide their data models in identity and access event logs and repositories to review available data and information. A catalogue of IAI information should be developed that can benefit specific business intelligence use cases to deliver credibility to future IAM implementations.
By year-end 2013, fewer than 10 per cent of all authentication events will involve discrete, specialised authentication hardware of any kind.
As organisations adopt more-robust alternatives to passwords in more situations, they are increasingly considering alternative authentication methods that will enable them to meet their needs for improved security at a lower cost and with a better user experience. Authentication vendors that focus on specialised authentication hardware will find that they are competing in an increasingly niche market. Enterprise broad-portfolio authentication vendors, as well as commodity and specialist vendors, offering alternative authentication methods will be best positioned to capitalise on enterprises' future investments in new authentication methods. At the same time, they also will continue to see opportunities erode as other vendors and service providers (such as Check Point, Google and Facebook) continue to embed alternative authentication methods in their offerings.
CISOs and other leaders responsible for workforce and customer authentication should critically review their incumbent and planned authentication methods across all use cases. Gartner advises the use of discrete, specialised authentication hardware when it is clearly indicated (for example, when there is a clear need for the highest levels of assurance and accountability or an adjacent need that is best met through such hardware) but recommends that organisations evaluate alternatives. If these are risk-appropriate, consider the benefits that can accrue from a lower cost and a better user experience.
By the end of 2015, more than 50 per cent of cloud-based IAM offerings will be hybrid solutions.
A 'hybrid' cloud-based IAM solution is defined as using enterprise-based IAM software and scalable service-based technologies integrated for cloud computing. Enterprise IAM implementations continue to be complex and cost-prohibitive to implement or upgrade, and many organisations are seeking simpler implementation and extension strategies. As IAM technologies continue to mature, they are rearchitected as services, with the simplest and most-common technologies targeted first for rewriting. The transition to cloud-based IAM computing will be challenging, but will provide organisations with a foundation for experimentation with relatively low risk, without the need to make major investments or compromise privacy.
Gartner advises organisations to review the current state of individual IAM components, to assess their availability and ability to address existing IAM requirements before making any significant IAM product acquisitions. IT leaders should also assess the impact of inevitable IAM product and service acquisitions in the market on their own IAM implementation road map plan.
Additional information is available in the Gartner report " Predicts 2011: Identity and Access Management Continues Its Evolution Toward a Strategic Discipline." The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/....
The Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2011 will take place 9-10 March at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel in London. For further information about the Summit, please visit europe.gartner.com/iam. Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/... using #GartnerIAM. Members of the media can register for the Summit by contacting Laurence Goasduff, Gartner PR, on + 44 (0) 1784 267 195 or at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.
About the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit
Intelligence is one of the three pillars of IAM, but until recently it has had much less attention than administration or access. This must change. An improved identity and access intelligence quotient will deliver benefits, not just within the organisation's IAM programme, but throughout the organisation itself. At the Summit, Gartner analysts will explore the trends that are changing business needs and the ways in which IAM can and must be delivered and examine the transition of IAM into a full business intelligence resource for the organisation.
"The need to limit costs and deliver real world business results is forcing IAM professionals to take a more strategic approach to IAM," said Ant Allan, research vice president at Gartner. "With this in mind, we have developed a set of key predictions for 2011 and beyond to aid chief information security officers (CISOs) and other IAM stakeholders when allocating resources and selecting IAM products and services."
By 2014, notable project failures will cause 50 per cent of organisations to shift their IAM efforts to intelligence, rather than administration.
Focusing IAM projects on intelligence - monitoring, log collection, correlation, analytics and reporting - ensures that identity and access intelligence (IAI) tools can deliver quick answers to business questions. Organisations that fail to adopt a formal and effective approach to delivering IAM with IAI will continue to experience delivery challenges as the business places less emphasis on IT's need for operations efficiency and more emphasis on the organisation's needs for accountability and reliability of access.
Analysts recommend that organisations insist that IAM vendors provide their data models in identity and access event logs and repositories to review available data and information. A catalogue of IAI information should be developed that can benefit specific business intelligence use cases to deliver credibility to future IAM implementations.
By year-end 2013, fewer than 10 per cent of all authentication events will involve discrete, specialised authentication hardware of any kind.
As organisations adopt more-robust alternatives to passwords in more situations, they are increasingly considering alternative authentication methods that will enable them to meet their needs for improved security at a lower cost and with a better user experience. Authentication vendors that focus on specialised authentication hardware will find that they are competing in an increasingly niche market. Enterprise broad-portfolio authentication vendors, as well as commodity and specialist vendors, offering alternative authentication methods will be best positioned to capitalise on enterprises' future investments in new authentication methods. At the same time, they also will continue to see opportunities erode as other vendors and service providers (such as Check Point, Google and Facebook) continue to embed alternative authentication methods in their offerings.
CISOs and other leaders responsible for workforce and customer authentication should critically review their incumbent and planned authentication methods across all use cases. Gartner advises the use of discrete, specialised authentication hardware when it is clearly indicated (for example, when there is a clear need for the highest levels of assurance and accountability or an adjacent need that is best met through such hardware) but recommends that organisations evaluate alternatives. If these are risk-appropriate, consider the benefits that can accrue from a lower cost and a better user experience.
By the end of 2015, more than 50 per cent of cloud-based IAM offerings will be hybrid solutions.
A 'hybrid' cloud-based IAM solution is defined as using enterprise-based IAM software and scalable service-based technologies integrated for cloud computing. Enterprise IAM implementations continue to be complex and cost-prohibitive to implement or upgrade, and many organisations are seeking simpler implementation and extension strategies. As IAM technologies continue to mature, they are rearchitected as services, with the simplest and most-common technologies targeted first for rewriting. The transition to cloud-based IAM computing will be challenging, but will provide organisations with a foundation for experimentation with relatively low risk, without the need to make major investments or compromise privacy.
Gartner advises organisations to review the current state of individual IAM components, to assess their availability and ability to address existing IAM requirements before making any significant IAM product acquisitions. IT leaders should also assess the impact of inevitable IAM product and service acquisitions in the market on their own IAM implementation road map plan.
Additional information is available in the Gartner report " Predicts 2011: Identity and Access Management Continues Its Evolution Toward a Strategic Discipline." The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/....
The Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2011 will take place 9-10 March at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel in London. For further information about the Summit, please visit europe.gartner.com/iam. Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/... using #GartnerIAM. Members of the media can register for the Summit by contacting Laurence Goasduff, Gartner PR, on + 44 (0) 1784 267 195 or at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.
About the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit
Intelligence is one of the three pillars of IAM, but until recently it has had much less attention than administration or access. This must change. An improved identity and access intelligence quotient will deliver benefits, not just within the organisation's IAM programme, but throughout the organisation itself. At the Summit, Gartner analysts will explore the trends that are changing business needs and the ways in which IAM can and must be delivered and examine the transition of IAM into a full business intelligence resource for the organisation.
