Item: Oracle Identity Governance
Rating: 7
Author: Brijesh Kumar Swarnkar

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Oracle Identity Manager(OIM) being used by the organization to identity lifecycle management of employees, contractors, and partners. It’s being used across the whole organization as a number of applications rely on OIM for automated provisioning and requests based provisioning of user accounts. OIM not only automates identity lifecycle across multiple applications but it also helps the organization to reduce related admin costs. At the same time, it ensures minimum entitlements to users' accounts, which is the backbone of identity management.

Pros and Cons

Very well defined connector framework, which enables us to connect with industry-leading applications, either as a trusted source or targets.
Very much customizable and scalable as per organisational needs.
Always a preferable choice when you have an Oracle applications ecosystem in place as it's easy to configure and maintain when coupled.

Very high cost compared to its competitors in the market, not suitable for medium or small businesses
There are a lot of known bugs and a constant need to patch [them]
Heavy on hardware, at least 8GB of RAM is needed!! There are much lighter products available with comparable features.
Need skilled professionals to configure and maintain, which leads to additional cost.

Return on Investment

Positive impact in terms of cost savings with regards to reduction in unwanted accounts, less turn around time for account provisioning leading to quick readiness of new users.
Negative impact- high investment of resources to start with, ROI realisation takes time (at least 2-3 years in many cases).
Negative impact - Bugs and patching lead to nightmare scenarios in SOC operations.

Alternatives Considered

ForgeRock OpenIDM and CA Identity Manager

OIM is a leader in the identity management space and appropriate for specific organisations and use cases. Where its competitors have an edge over cost and overall look and feel of product, OIM offers Oracle's vast experience of enterprise security products and compatibility with infrastructure applications. It melds well with other Oracle security products like OAM and OAAM. When cost is not a problem and you are ready to invest your resources for long-term OIM is preferable. It has its pros and cons as explained earlier, and should be selected on basis of specific needs.

Likelihood to Recommend

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

Usability

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.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use	Unnecessarily complex Requires technical support Inconsistent Slow to learn Lots to learn

Easy Tasks

Automated provisioning
Scheduler management
Password management

Difficult Tasks

User Interface
Custom adopters and connectors
Thread management and warning messages

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes, but I don't use it

Oracle Identity Manager Go or No Go - A Review

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle Identity Manager