Opal.dev vs. Oracle Identity Governance

I am frustrated that my organization chose to adopt Opal for our access management tool. It is extremely difficult to use, due to bugs and basic functionality missing. Engineers are not given write access to production resources, so every change must flow through Opal.

This involves writing an IAM policy by hand for every request, because it is far too difficult to find an existing role in the system, and requests must the narrowly tailored only to allow the exact operation requested. Opal makes this process much more difficult because it lacks basic functionality for end users, such as: -Ability to modify an existing IAM role

-Ability to view existing IAM roles

-Ability to delete duplicate Opal roles

-Lack of IAM role templates

-Poor error messages when attempting JSON policy fails validation

In general, each Opal request takes 5-10 minutes because you need to be very explicit with every API action you are requesting, which then needs to be repeated multiple times because it is very hard to get everything correct the first time, which then requires a new round of reviews. This is partially because AWS IAM roles can be tricky to get right, but Opal provides no functionality to make this easier.

Incentivized

Well suited for: 1. Large and medium organisations who have the capacity to invest in IAM roadmap for long term. 2. Organisations with and existing oracle and partner applications ecosystem. 3. Scenario where the user base is on the higher side and organisations looking to scale up in near future. 4. Organisation with complex workflow need in identity management process. Not well suited for 1. Small organisations or even medium ones which have a lesser number of applications 2. Scenarios where custom connectors need to be developed but at the same time turnaround should be quick. 3. Scenarios when features you are looking for are missing, getting them added could take a lot of effort. 4. UI is not very user-friendly and needs to be customised. 5. Takes time to stablise post going live

Incentivized

• It has a very well-defined and scalable framework (LDAP directory).
• It scales particularly well, going from a basic platform to a complex one using customisation and extensions.
• It integrates well with other components like SSO and Access Manager to provide comprehensive a one stop identity management solution.

Incentivized

• Inability to modify an IAM role after creation
• Inability to use templated IAM roles
• Inability to see existing IAM roles
• Inability for users to clean up existing Opal roles
• Poor ability to search for existing Opal roles
• Repeated reliability issues - IAM role creation breaks far too often
• Cryptic error messages when IAM JSON is incorrect

Incentivized

• The cost could be lower.
• Support.
• Identity.

Incentivized

Overall good product and somewhat reliable when used in a specific manner. However, there are cons like unending bugs and no well-defined upgrade path. The product could have been more flexible and lite in terms of organisational infra needs. OIM is a robust product but other vendors are almost on-par now.

Incentivized

I was not involved in the purchasing decision, an enterprise architect who used Gartner as a source was influential

• Decreased engineering productivity

Incentivized

• It has a great impact from moving us from paper based to full EHR Compliance
• It's easy to check and see how users get and lose access to the systems that are administered through OIM
• It's also helping in tying down Policies and procedures within the Orgainization

Incentivized