Next Steps for IAM
Identity and Access Management (IAM) Launches StarID Service
After many months of planning, analyzing, designing, building and testing, the Identity and Access Management team has a functioning new infrastructure along with an authentication service that uses the StarID as the login credential. It is a major milestone in a long journey that couldn't have been accomplished without the expertise, cooperation and hard work of many people across the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Thank you!
Who has a StarID today?
Our capacity to create StarID accounts is limited because we don't yet have automated access to identity data (see below for more details). When that part of the infrastructure is available we will be able to more fully open our doors for business. A few people participated in the StarID proof of concept project in July 2007. The data from the proof of concept work was not retained and carried forward into the new production environment so participation in that project doesn't mean you have a StarID account today. If you want a StarID sooner than later, please send a request with your name, institution, and TechID number to the StarID Help Desk or use the Request StarID online form.
What's Coming for IAM?
An IAM program website… more information about the IAM program will be made available on the ITS website. You should expect information to be available in the coming weeks.
ISRS-IAM data integration technology… this is called the ISRS Abstraction Layer in the IAM architecture documentation. The technology has been designed and includes adding both event-triggers and periodic-scan processes to ISRS so changes to data in ISRS (that has been deemed relevant to IAM) can be picked up, processed, and made available to IAM systems to implement. The ISRS-IAM data integration technology is a critical component of the IAM infrastructure and we can't expand IAM services without it. Unfortunately, our IAM development needs are additions to the already lengthy list of development needs our dedicated ISRS development group is working through. The solution is more ISRS development capacity and options for providing additional resources are being investigated.
Campus Integration Pilot… establishing a link between the enterprise IAM systems and campus network systems. This project will create and manage StarID accounts in a campus network environment. That means individuals could use their StarID to log into both campus and enterprise systems. The goal of the pilot is to identify what campuses need to provide in terms of computing and personnel resources, establish planning and technical processes that facilitate integration, and develop experience integrating enterprise IAM systems with other systems. The pilot is not expected to result in deployed technology. Our IAM team will simulate the ISRS-IAM data integration technology, manually manipulating changes to data, so they can conduct this important work concurrently with the ISRS-IAM data integration development work. We have plenty that can be accomplished and learned so we get it right.
Student Affiliation Life Cycle Analysis… defining when a person is considered a student, identifying what data exists in ISRS to identify someone as a student, determining all variations of the student affiliation needed by service providers today and in the future, confirming that all campuses use comparable business practices when entering and changing data in ISRS that will affect student affiliation determinations. It is complicated work but it must be completed before we can issue StarIDs to students.
Campus Integration Deployments… taking the results of the campus integration pilot into production. Putting the technology and work flows in place that allow the enterprise IAM systems to create and manage network accounts in the campus network environment. Keep in mind that being able to do this work is completely dependent on having the ISRS-IAM data integration technology deployed.
Aligning Other IT Systems with IAM… getting other technology systems to use the IAM authentication service for controlling access. Doing this will replace the username and password associated with an application or service with the StarID. Over time, this will reduce the number of usernames and password our customers have to manage.
Questions? Please Ask.
Please contact Mark Peterson (mark.peterson@csu.mnscu.edu) or Al Essa (alfred.essa@csu.mnscu.edu) if you have questions about the IAM program or the projects listed above.
