Virtual Identity Dialogue

We launched 11g today. It's not just announcements - the software is ready to download.

There is more information on the updated Identity Management site.

It's also a major milestone for Oracle Directory Services reflecting over 3 years of work.  

So what is new?

The biggest changes in this release are within the management interfaces.

First - all 11g Identity Management components are now integrated with Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control (EMFMC). EMFMC provides customers with operational monitoring (is the server up/down, how is it performing) and is the single point of access for logging and auditing.

Second - Directory Services now support a common management interface - Oracle Directory Services Manager. In previous version - OID and OVD had independent desktop-based management interfaces. ODSM provides a Web-based, task-focused interface leveraging Oracle's ADF framework so it has a desktop look & feel. While OID and OVD both share a common management interface - they do not require each other for deployment.

Over the next few posts - I will provide some more screencasts of ODS 11g.

Saw the abstract of a new security paper via Scheier.

In short - strong passwords do not really do a better job of security accounts as you might think. This is because they do not do anything to prevent phishing and related social network attacks (not to mention good ol' sniffing of the network for passwords sent in the clear). And that the 3-strikes rule on most sites is sufficiently good enough security to prevent brute force attacks (I've long argued that most attacks do not go directly against the password database, but through the app and this seems to prove my hypothesis).

Another nugget from this abstract:

If a larger credential space is needed it appears better to increase the strength of the user ID's rather than the passwords.

Oracle Identity and Access Management products can help you implement both passwords as well as increase the strength of identities via Oracle Adaptive Access Manager. With the improved reporting in 11g Fusion Middleware it is also possible to track all password requests from the application they were entered through the directory services layer. Thus customers can be more aware of when password failures occur and why.

Thus can help create policies to help improve their security.

Because as they used to say on the old G.I. Joe cartoon - "knowledge is half of the battle".

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11. And here is a link to one of my favorite photos - the launch of the Saturn V sending them on their way.

I also have a personal connection to the moon landing. My grandfather actually knew Neil Armstrong's parents and even met Neil several times when Neil was a teenager. Though to be candid - as I told my mom, I'm not sure if you could have picked a more boring person to be the first person on the moon. I really wish Jim Lovell (commander of Apollo 13 and first person to make 2 trips to the moon, though unfortunately never able to land) had been the first because he's much more comfortable doing publicity.

That being said - I really wish Obama would come out and have a bold new vision of space exploration. One that encouraged private exploration - basically NASA could act like the FAA for coordination. 

Exploration shouldn't be limited by the the winds of politics.

Whether it's actually sending more people to the moon (or beyond) or better unmanned platforms (it should be pointed out that we have found much more about the universe including the stunning Hubbel photographs - have been carried out by unmanned missions). I doubt there is much money in space exploration beyond space tourism but then I'm sure the same was said of the early sea explorers.

But I want to unshackle the next generation of explorers from the whims of politicians. I want my nieces and nephews who while playing with their Lego-built spaceships think of really flying in space. I want to see Red Bull sponsored moon racing.

In short - I want to see what we can do next so that when 2069 roles around -we're not talking about 100 years ago being the last time we set foot on the moon.

Today we announced that Cisco and Visa were the recipients of our first annual Identity Management Innovation award. Visa won because of their innovative use of OVD.

From the award page:

“Visa deployed Oracle Virtual Directory Services to provide applications with a single view of identity data and to facilitate the externalization of access control from the applications. Oracle Virtual Directory is part of Visa's Identity and Access Management infrastructure to streamline the access management processes for corporate applications,” said Paul Mezzera, Lead System Architect, Visa.