Since Oracle’s Sun acquisition completed on January 27th, Oracle started a massive communication campaign to detail product’s roadmap and integration.
Regarding Identity Management (IDM) products and technologies strategy and integration, you can view the full web cast (18 minutes) or just read through my summary below.
Directory (LDAP)
- Sun Directory Server is strategic and will consume some of the features of Oracle Internet Directory.
- OpenDS stays an open source project.
Authorization and Access Management
- Oracle Access Manager is the strategic product for Web SSO
- Sun OpenSSO continues as an open source project
- Oracle Identity Federation is strategic and will include OpenSSO’s fedlet
- Oracle Access Manager will be enhanced with OpenSSO Secure Token Service (for web service security)
- Oracle plans to create migration tools from OpenSSO to OAM and OIF
- Sun OpenSSO Enterprise will be renamed Oracle OpenSSO
As with other products, Oracle will extend OpenSSO support until 2014 (for premium support) and 2017 (for extended support).
Provisioning
- Oracle Identity Manager is strategic
- Oracle Identity Manager will be enhances with functionality of Sun Identity Manager (mainly SPML provisioning)
- Oracle plans to create migration tools from Sun Identity Manager to Oracle Identity Manager
- Sun Identity Manager will be renamed Oracle WaveSet
Compliance
- Sun Role Manager is strategic and will be called Oracle Identity Analytics
#1 by Emmanuel Lécharny on 29/01/2010 - 08:22
I really wonder what does "XXX remains an open source project"… Something like "Don’t expect us to pay anyone to work on such a project" ?
#2 by uberVU - social comments on 30/01/2010 - 01:23
[Trackback] This post was mentioned on Twitter by sebsto: New Blog Post : Oracle + Sun Identity Management product strategy http://bit.ly/d0ChVt #oraclesun #idm
#3 by Darren Chapman on 01/02/2010 - 10:50
"Sun OpenSSO continues as an open source project"
As Emmanuel says, what exactly does that mean? Sounds bad to me as someone who is about to deploy OpenSSO as a university wide SSO solution :-/
Sucks. Bet we won’t be able to afford the Oracle option. Not sure we will be able to afford Oracle/Sun support on a lot of our stuff in the future.
Sad 🙁
#4 by Sebastien Stormacq on 01/02/2010 - 10:56
Darren,
Oracle is committed to support existing OpenSSO customers but chose Oracle Access Manager & co as Oracle’s strategic IAM tools.
Fortunately, OpenSSO is open source and you might expect to see startups or established companies create value around OpenSSO and ensure the solution will continue to evolve.
Have a look at http://www.forgerock.com started today for example.
#5 by Darren Chapman on 01/02/2010 - 11:14
Yeah, but Oracle support is (in the past) way more than we can justify for a lot of things. Might not be the case for this, but our JES renegotiations in 18mnths or so could be interesting…
We licence Oracle Weblogic suite (mainly App server with the dev environment) for more than we pay Sun for the entire JES stack. Can’t see that happening again! Of course, Sun couldn’t make money, Oracle do – so maybe it’s just a market we can’t afford to be in. As I said, it’s sad, but I’m not surprised 🙁 We run apache, php, uportal, drupal as opensource products without the backing of proper support – so I guess opensso will just become another one of those. Oh well, it was good while it lasted 🙂
Still, interesting times – and some interesting decisions we will need to be making in the next couple of years!
Cheers
#6 by Emmanuel Lécharny on 01/02/2010 - 13:28
Unfortunately, Sebastien, I’m not sure, and pretty certain of the opposite, that Oracle doe have a clue of what makes an OSS successful. Ie, community. No community, no project.
Of course, Oracle can dump Glassfish, OpenSSO and OpenDS in a trashbin^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hforge, like SourceForge, a place where 70 000 other projects are slowly withering.
In fact, you exactly clarified Oracle position regarding those projects : Oracle don’t give a dime. Thanks for this clarification.
#7 by Sébastien Stormacq on 01/02/2010 - 13:45
Emmanuel, let me moderate your comment a little bit.
(Remember : I do talk for myself – my opinions are not the ones from Oracle)
Here is how I understand and see the situation.
1. When Oracle says "We will continue to support existing customers".
I understand : "we will continue to fix bugs, issue patches, support new platforms / adapters / systems and sell these to customers having a support contract"
2. When Oracle says "lifetime support", I do understand : "as long as you are paying, we will continue to support you"
3. When Oracle says "our strategic IAM tools are Oracle IAM family products"
I understand : we will not sell OpenSSO to new customers and will not bring any significant new features to it"
4. I do believe in communities and I know Sun managed to create a community around OpenSSO. As a matter of fact, some companies (like ForgeRock mentioned in my previous comment) already started to sell service and support around OpenSSO. There web site says they are hiring engineers, so they might even further develop such products.
I do not agree with you that the solution is aimed at disappearing if / when Oracle will drop engineering effort from it. Forks do happen, communities do exist and might provide an alternative paths for OpenSSO users that can not afford an Oracle support contract.
So, if you are an happy OpenSSO user today and do not want (or can’t afford) to follow Oracle, I would contact one of these companies to see what they propose and how you can trust them in the foreseeable future.
(once again, these are my understanding and opinion, not the one from Oracle)
#8 by Emmanuel Lécharny on 01/02/2010 - 14:01
Sebastien,
again, this is a confirmation that Oracle does not know what is OSS about. Or they know, but they don’t care. What is important for Oracle is their Customers.
That’s perfectly fine with me. There is nothing wrong in making money.
It’s just that it should be crystal clear that sustaining OSS is not on any Oracle’s agenda.
#9 by Sebastien Stormacq on 01/02/2010 - 14:06
I can’t agree more – you’re right that Oracle will focus on its customers (and balance sheet) first. Something Sun was bad at (the balance sheet, not the customers 😉 )
Just one point – I would not say "that sustaining OSS is not on any Oracle’s agenda". The acquisition process just started last week. This is an enormous piece to swallow. Let’s see in the coming weeks if / when / how Oracle will come with more details about it’s OSS plans.
#10 by Jonathan Scudder on 07/02/2010 - 17:29
Emmanuel & Darren,
Just to confirm what Sebastien mentioned, ForgeRock is hopefully a good example of a company that is both willing and able to develop and support products from Sun’s middleware stack. We don’t believe that OpenSSO, for example, deserves to die a slow death. I appreciate that these are early days and that we will need to prove that we can deliver on this, but just so you know – we fully intend to do exactly that 🙂