Identity management and Open source alternatives

Identity Management has become a critical component in modern IT industry. Its a challenge to choose the best product, while ensuring the flexibility is not lost due to increase in employee base and adhering to security compliance needs. Some of the key industry leading products include CA Siteminder, Oracle Access  Manager, IBM Tivoli Access Manager and so on. Before explaining the products and alternatives, let's analyze the different capabilities required for an IT enterprise.

Identity management solution normally requires Access Management, Federation, Web Services Ability, Policy Based Enforcements, Enterprise Single Sign on (ESSO) and so on. Let's see a sample Comparison table for each of the products

Comparison of Major Identity management solutions

	CA Siteminder	Oracle Access Manager	IBM Tivoli Access Manager
Access Management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Federation	Require Federation Mgr	Oracle Identity Federation	Federated Identity Mgr
Web Services Support	CA WS Manager	WS Manager	Federated Identity Mgr
Policy Enforcements	CA Entitlements Mgr	Oracle Entitlements Mgr	Security Policy Mgr
Enterprise SSO	CA Single Sign-on	Passlogix	Access Manager Adapter

 So What are the Open Source Alternatives?

1. OpenLDAP - Mostly a LDAP implementation, but available with most of native OS installations. Now an essential part of CURL


2. Apache Knox - provides pluggable authentication to LDAP using REST API's. Knox would be fast growing especially in big data environments
   

   Apache Knox Design

3. OpenAM - The forked version of the ever best OpenSSO project which was dismantled after Oracle's bid on Sun.  Some great documentation and Video Tutorials  for beginners.


4. SimpleSAMLphp- If you are working on PHP clients, this one is for you. A native PHP based simple tool.


5. OpenDS - Not so active thesedays.


6. Others include  OpenLiberty, Lasso, Higgins Project from Eclipse