Oracle and IAM

Last week I have had the pleasure of participating in the Oracle partner forum for Identity Management in Berlin. A number of exiting solutions and roadmaps where presented. It was very impressive to see the full IAM package that Oracle has put together.

Of course some topics were more interesting than others. Especially mobile security and Internet of Things in an IAM perspective was interesting.

On the mobile site Oracle has with the acquisition of Bitzer Mobile, gotten a good approach to mobile security, incl. app control. Their approach differs from the normal VPN approach, where the entire phone is locked down, with this solution you build an app tunnel, to secure only the cooperate apps. So you can now continue using Facebook or LinkedIn, without those apps gaining access to your cooperate data. It looks and sounds very interesting and I am hoping soon to see it live.

Link to Oracle Mobile security site:
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/identity-management/mobile-security/overview/index.html

 

The other new thing and definitely a buzz word that we will hear a lot more of in the coming years is Internet of Things or IoT.

So what is IoT. Well the definitions I have heard is that a large number of devices (or things) will be coordinating and talking together over the internet, thereby adding new functions and added value for the consumer. For example when you are driving in your car, the cars ahead of you can warn you of traffic jams etc.

By 2020 it is expected that 50 billion devices will be talking together

So the question is now, how do we build end-to-end security to ensure that only the relevant people get access to only my information? Well, one thing is to have tight control with your IAM scope, why not leverage IAM to build a secure end-to-end solution? Some of the technology already exists, but I am sure that we have only seen the start of clever access management IoT solutions.

So if IAM can successfully position itself in this new sphere, IAM will stay a central player and future build on the importance for years to come. In any case, it is going to be very interesting – at least for a security nerd – to see solutions on IoT.