Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007

Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007 enables IT organizations to reduce the cost of managing the identity and access life cycle by providing a single view of a user's identity across the heterogeneous enterprise and through the automation of common tasks. ILM 2007 builds on the metadirectory and user provisioning capabilities in Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003 and adds new capabilities for managing strong credentials such as smartcards, providing an integrated approach that pulls together metadirectory, certificate and password management, and user provisioning across Windows® and other enterprise systems.

ILM 2007 simplifies the process of matching and managing identity records from disparate data repositories, and prevents anomalies, such as active records for employees who have left the organization. ILM 2007 provides IT with a policy framework to control and track the identity and access data that helps manage compliance. It also includes self-help tools for end users, enabling IT to improve efficiency by securely delegating many tasks to end users. Another key feature of ILM 2007 is that it includes a Windows-based certificate management solution that integrates with the Windows Server 2003 operating system and Active Directory® to provide a turnkey solution for managing the end-to-end life cycle of smart cards and digital certificates for the Windows Server 2003 Certificate Authority.

How Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 Works

ILM 2007 has two central components, one that includes metadirectory and user provisioning capabilities and another for certificate and smart card management.

Identity Synchronization and User Provisioning

The identity synchronization and user provisioning component of ILM 2007 manages identity information across multiple stores by aggregating this information in a central repository called the metaverse. Management agents serve as connectors that translate data from these connected stores to the metaverse. For example, the e-mail system can be linked to its HR database through the metaverse. When an employee joining the organization is added to the HR database, ILM 2007 can automatically provision that employee to the e-mail system. Each employee's attributes, from the e-mail system and the HR database, are imported into the connector space through management agents.

The e-mail system can then use individual attributes, from the employee entry that originated in the HR database, such as the employee telephone number. If an employee's telephone number changes in the HR database, the new number will automatically be propagated to the e-mail system.

Certificate and Smart Card Management

ILM 2007 also provides sophisticated credential management features to Windows Server 2003 Certificate Authorities (CA) by acting as an administrative proxy. Once installed within an organization, all digital certificate and smartcard management functions pass through ILM 2007.