BMC Software on Monday released a new version of its Identity Management Suite, including three new products designed to help businesses manage passwords and employee identities and comply with government regulations.
Monday's release includes BMC Identity Discovery, BMC Identity Compliance Manager and BMC Identity Federation Manager, and is the phase two release of the BMC Identity Management Suite blueprint outlined in June, the company said.
The updated, version 5.0 BMC Identity Management Suite aims to help businesses use identity information to address issues such as compliance, authorized access, application security and data security, BMC said.
BMC is attempting to go beyond a product that only allows businesses to build and maintain an IT infrastructure, said Somesh Singh, vice president and general manager of BMC's Identity Management Business Unit. The new product suite, using the widely accepted principals of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) management approach, allows customers to use identity data to access the entire IT infrastructure and manage changes in processes and technology, he said.
The new BMC products, available immediately, are a "significant step forward" in their security and compliance offerings, said Richard Ptak, principal analyst with Ptak, Noel & Associates, a research firm focusing on IT convergence products. In laying out a blueprint for its Identity Management Suite, BMC has helped potential customers identify the security products they need to solve their problems, Ptak said.
"With this addition, they show that they're committed to being a serious provider of functionality in the security space," Ptak added. "They very carefully show where you can modularly pick from what they have to offer."
The BMC Identity Management Suite includes products for directory management and visualization, access management, user administration and provisioning, password management and audit and compliance management, according to the company. The three new products released Monday are:
-- BMC Identity Discovery: This product allows customers to populate the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) with identity data. Combining identity data with the BMC Atrium CMDB allows customers to directly link hardware and software to specific users in an organization, giving customers a better view of their IT assets, business processes and resource allocations, BMC said. BMC Identity Discovery is built into the suite. The starting list price for the suite is US$60,000, plus a per user cost that begins at US$15 per user.
-- BMC Identity Compliance Manager: Rooted in the principles of ITIL, the product provides a foundation of best practices to address regulatory compliance. BMC Identity Compliance Manager uses a graphical dashboard to report on policy compliance, and it helps organizations by demonstrating the policies and controls implemented throughout the organization to comply with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. Through the dashboard, customers track, manage and archive all policy exceptions, helping to comply with regulations, BMC said. The starting price is $15,000, plus a per user cost that begins at $6 per user. The BMC Identity Management Suite is needed to use the compliance manager.
-- BMC Identity Federation Manager: This product helps organizations make sure that key stakeholders have the right level of access to key business applications. BMC Identity Federation Manager manages identities for customers, partners and vendors, and allows those users to move through company resources. The product provides organizations secure communications routes and addresses security and privacy concerns over authorization, access and risk management, BMC said. The starting price is $10,000, plus a per user cost that begins at US$3 per user.