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Hitachi ID Management Suite Architecture

Hitachi ID Group Manager is a component of Hitachi ID Management Suite. The following architectural description applies to the entire Hitachi ID Management Suite:

Hitachi ID Management Suite is designed for:

• Security:

  Hitachi ID Management Suite is installed on hardened servers. All sensitive data is encrypted in storage and transit. Strong authentication and access controls protect business processes.

• Scalability:

  Multiple Hitachi ID Management Suite servers can be installed, using a built-in data replication facility. Workload can be distributed using any load-balancing technology (IP, DNS, etc.). The end result is a multi-master, distributed architecture that is very easy to setup, as replication is handled at the application layer.

• Performance:

  Hitachi ID Management Suite uses a normalized, relational and indexed database back end. All access to the database is via stored procedures, which help to minimize communication overhead between the application and database. All Hitachi ID Management Suite code is native code, which provides a 2x to 10x performance advantage as compared to Java or .NET

• Openness:

  Open standards are used for inbound integration (SOAP) and outbound communications (SOAP, SMTP, HTTP, etc.).

• Flexibility:

  Both the Hitachi ID Management Suite user interface and all functionality can be customized to meet enterprise requirements.

• Low TCO:

  Hitachi ID Management Suite is easy to set up and requires minimal ongoing administration.

Figure [link] illustrates the Hitachi ID Management Suite network architecture:

    Network architecture diagram (1)

• Users normally access Hitachi ID Management Suite using HTTPS from a web browser.

• Multiple Hitachi ID Management Suite servers may be load balanced using either an IP-level device (e.g., Cisco Local Director, F5 Big/IP) or simply using DNS round-robin distribution.

• Native password changes on some systems may trigger transparent password synchronization. A password change interceptor DLL, library or exit may capture such changes and initiate transparent password synchronization.

• Users may call an IVR system with a telephone and be authenticated either using touch-tone input of personal information or using a voice print. Authenticated users may initiate a password reset.

• Hitachi ID Management Suite connects to most target systems using their native APIs and protocols and thus requires no software to be installed locally on those systems.

• Local agents are provided and recommended for Unix servers and z/OS mainframes. Use of these agents improves transaction security, speed and concurrency.

• A local agent is mandatory on older RSA SecurID servers (version 7.x and later exposes a remote API).

• Where target systems are remote and communication with them is slow, insecure or both, a Hitachi ID Management Suite proxy server may be co-located with the target system in the remote location. In this case, servers in the main Hitachi ID Management Suite server cluster initiate fast, secure connections to the remote proxies, which decode these transactions and forward them to target systems locally, using native, slow and/or insecure protocols.

• Hitachi ID Management Suite can look up and update user profile data in an existing system, including HR databases (ODBC), directories (LDAP) and meta-directories (e.g., WMI to Microsoft ILM).

• Hitachi ID Management Suite can send e-mails to users asking them to register or to notify them of events impacting their profiles. Over 189 events can trigger e-mail notification.

• Hitachi ID Management Suite can create tickets on most common incident management systems, either recording completed activity or requesting assistance (security events, user service follow-up, etc.). Over 189 events can trigger ticket generation. Binary integrations are available for 17 help desk applications and open integration is possible using mail, ODBC, SQL and web services.