Comments on Ian Yip's Security and Identity Thought Stream: Can Identity Management really be outsourced?

I can see outsourcing idm being a valid business d...

2008-09-17T20:55:00.000+10:00

I can see outsourcing idm being a valid business decision at the initiation of the project. With new idm projects, any data and business processes that are perceived as sensitive have to be shared with the consultants providing the initial deployment and configuration expertise anyway, so sharing those same processes and data with an outsourced idm service provider really shouldn't 'feel' any different.

Migrating an existing internal idm solution to an outsourcing service provider is a whole other kettle of fish, and is less about psychological issues and more about transfer of knowledge. Identity management is a complicated business, and it would be quite an undertaking to handover business and technical procedures, code and expertise to an FNG.

It would depend on your business drivers. If your current solution is poor and the outsourced options offer cost reductions and a better solution, the it could be a goer. If cost reduction is the sole driver, then the extensive handover process would have to be taken into account.

Just my tuppence.

Interesting topic and I agree with pretty much eve...

2008-09-03T19:27:00.000+10:00

Interesting topic and I agree with pretty much everyone here but I thought I would add my two cents =). If we think about IdM in context of it's evolution then we might be able to better put outsourcing of IdM into perspective. Think of this evolution as a series of nested Russian dolls, each business driver encompases the former....

First generation IdM was originally developed to automate back office operations such as user [not identity*] provisioning and data synchronisation for example.

It wasn't until the 'user' information took on an 'identity' context, which had more profound security implications. Under this new context, the second generation of IdM was still about automating back office functions, however the projects expanded starting to address more of the 'security' concerns in IT* [who has access to what and should they have that access].

Finally the third generation , and where I believe we are at today, IdM has further grown to take on more of a business context expanding into the governance and compliance arena where it is aimed to address SoX, Basel etc.

So, assuming we agree on my timeline: the question remains, why do people invest in IdM and where does outsourcing fit in?

I would argue that today companies buy IdM solutions b/c their is a business problem that IdM technology can help solve, ie: compliance requirements. Further, I would also argue that outsourcing doesn't even enter into that decision making whether that decisionis to start the project or make a technology choice. For examply you can't decide, humm I need IdM so lets hire Wipro, IBM, Infosys et al. to come and do it for us!

Therefore, outsourcing has no real impact from a customer perspective in terms IdM ... it is a decision one makes when they are ready to divest resources for the project and hand it over to a 3rd party for the likes of technical support and application integration.

IdM remains and will always be a business problem, central to the heart of both IT and the business. Identity and Accsess is a business transformation project that should address how a company can effectively manage business information in a secure manner.

Hello Ian:

Thank you for such a well-reason...

2008-08-30T04:48:00.000+10:00

Hello Ian:

Thank you for such a well-reasoned, and thought-provoking post. You make some strong points here, and I wanted to take the opportunity and share some additional perspective. In particular, my response addresses the “toughness of sell” factor, market readiness, and emotional drivers around IAM-related outsourcing. Here goes:

First, IAM outsourcing is not all about risk and comfort level, except within select verticals. Primary drivers for many businesses -- both for and not for profit -- are:

--The desire to have the services that IAM platforms provide
--Limited resource availability
--Limited or no IAM core competencies of existing staff
--IAM infrastructure and systems management not core to client business
--Limited staffing / head count budget

I’m sure I may ruffle a few feathers by saying this to some, but business -- by and large -- does not care about security. (Except for providers of security-related products and services...) Or rather, business only cares to the extent that market forces, customers, and regulatory agencies demands it. Security in and of itself is and remains largely intangible for most, and other than the “hey, you can stay out of the front page of the Wall Street Journal, or reduce your fine/audit exposure, or reduce insurance costs” there is very little reason for most business to make anything beyond cursory investments in pure security and compliance technologies. Not to put too fine a point on it, but businesses invest in security because they have to, not because they want to. (True - this is a blanket statement and many exceptions exist, but the statement covers the broadest swathe of international business models and verticals.)

Another thing many do not (really) care about? Best practices. Like “social media,” (enjoyed your post on branding by the way!) is a hip trendy term that people like to use. “Best practices” are the practices all organizations think they should be practicing, but in actuality do not. It’s a term that helps sell frameworks, tools, and conference passes, but that has very little tangible impact in many organizations. I have blogged about this in the past, and covered it to a lesser extent in “IAM Success Tips: Volume 1.”

What businesses *do* care about, is processes, methods, and tools that can facilitate making money, improving bottom and top-lines, improving customer satisfaction, improving end-user experience, reducing time to marketing, reducing help desk costs and calls, streamlining processes, etc. Provide real-world solutions for these needs, and organizations will and do gladly engage in outsourced IAM (at all levels,) and after-market support. Regarding the “sale” difficulty, part of that has traditionally been that IAM-related vendors come from, and focus too heavily on the pure security aspects of their products and offerings, rather than on the more fiscal and user-satisfaction elements.

For the smb, educational markets, e-tailers, retailers, and a slew of other market verticals and business types, the conversations read more like this:

“We really want IAM services, because of the business process management efficiencies and user/client experience improvements they provide”

“But, we don’t have the resources”

”While we want the services that IAM provides, we don’t have the core competencies in house to make the vision a reality“

”While we want the services that IAM provides, the business of standing up instances of IAM software and managing users is not, nor will it be part of our core business service (a case for outsourcing). We sell widgets, not IAM management...“

“Our budget is already heavily over-allocated to other infrastructure initiatives, not to mention market and client acquisition and support costs” which limits how much we want to spend for internal IAM staff. By the time we send them to all the conferences, and vendor training at several thousand dollars per class, and then engage the consulting firm for several additional weeks for knowledge transfer, we have already eaten up several years of outside management costs."

”Let’s bring in some outside expertise, tell them what we want, and have them own the process.“

For many, the premise of outsourced management of IAM is very attractive. Because, many organizations realize that they:

1)Do not have the core competencies
2)Will never have the core competencies
3)Will never be in the business themselves of providing IAM-related services
4)Do not have their processes modeled
5)Do not have enough information or expertise, or time to define their current, much less future-state business processes
6)Are not qualified to determine accurately what risks really exist, levels of data protection needed, data classification levels, etc.

For organizations comprising the aforementioned models, it makes strong fiscal and sound business sense to outsource all or part of IAM functions. An increasing number of organizations want a ”set it and forget it“ model of IAM. When the right support packages provided effectively and with the right assurances, there is indeed strong interest and subsequent execution.

One other discussion point to add. The classic ”command control and audit“ type of organization is gradually giving way to distributed management and shared ownership models. The up and coming generation of network service consumers, and newer-ecomony countries such as India, demand different models and have a different thinking around concepts of business, security, privacy/identity. The market is, and will continue to move (in baby, then teenage, then adult steps) toward the distributed outsourcing model of all IAM services.

Sun, IBM, Oracle et al. are giant centralized entities themselves, and it is extraordinarily difficult for them to provide actual aftermarket services that non-heavily centralized organizations find useful as the global business world evolves. You were spot on in saying that overall, the current market is not fully ready for fully outsourced identity services—yet. Only now, are organizations starting to move portions of their business (including IAM and HR as others have noted,) to managed providers. Having worked with one of the ”dotbomb“ first generation providers, it is clear (now in hindsight...) how un-ready the market was--then. Now, it is becoming readier. Companies *are* doing it, and becoming quite happy with the results.

Best regards,

Corbin Links, President
Links Business Group LLC

Alex, that's what I meant when I said it was mostl...

2008-07-29T10:26:00.000+10:00

Alex, that's what I meant when I said it was mostly psychological. People think Managed Service or SaaS and immediately think "oh crap, my data is going off-site". It doesn't dawn on most to think about the systems they already have either being hosted somewhere else or managed by a service provider as containing sensitive data that they don't want to "lose control of".

As for the challenge being the security infrastructure being around the Identity data, it's a start. There's a lot of selling to be done and perceptions to be influenced.

I should also note that your reference to administrative access being controlled by roles is only partially correct. It's not ONLY about roles. In fact, it doesn't even need to involve roles. It's about overall access control and accountability. Roles are just one of many tactical approaches that can be taken to achieve the overall goal. More often than not, they are used in combination with other approaches including (but not limited to) attribute based access controls.

I understand the sensitivity around the identity i...

2008-07-26T00:40:00.000+10:00