Oracle Cloud Applications, also referred to as Oracle Fusion Applications, bring consistent processes and a single source of truth across the most important business functions – from enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, and human capital management to customer experience. In most businesses, Oracle Cloud Applications are likely to coexist with other cloud, mobile, on-premises technologies, and more. While this mix of coexistent technologies drives many businesses, it also increases the complexity of securing and governing user access while maintaining compliance adherence. Businesses with such heterogeneity gain significant operational benefits and can minimize risk of data breaches, fraud, and regulatory violations when they govern their user access from a single platform.

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) systems such as Oracle Access Governance, provide a single platform to automate user provisioning, access requests, access controls, customized approval workflows, auditing, and compliance-related reporting across an entire digital ecosystem. With its intuitive user experience, insightful analytics, AI-assisted automation, Oracle Access Governance helps enforce that the right people have access to the right resources at any time. The deep, native integrations to the Oracle ecosystem and a rapidly growing list of connectors for easy integration to other business technologies, makes Oracle Access Governance the default and superior IGA solution for Oracle Cloud Applications and Infrastructure. In contrast, other identity governance solutions attempting to secure Oracle Cloud, often require complex custom integrations, lack real-time access visibility, and they fall short in keeping up with rapid developments within Oracle Cloud.

Oracle Access Governance is offered in the Oracle Universal Credits rate card and is available in Oracle Cloud regions globally. It is just a matter of a few clicks from the cloud portal to start using this service with Oracle Cloud Applications, OCI, and more. Customers can also activate the service with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Zero Trust Landing Zone, i.e., Oracle’s recommended solution for one-click provisioning of Oracle Cloud tenancy, with deployment and hardened configuration of key services to implement a zero trust architecture.

Oracle Access Governance architecture model.
Figure 1: Oracle Access Governance – Best IGA for the Oracle ecosystem with easy integration to other systems in the enterprise

 

The Advantages of Deep, Native Integration with Oracle Cloud Applications

Businesses with the mix of Oracle Cloud Applications and other technologies often have manual and fragmented user provisioning and compliance workflows. This is inherently error prone and expensive, and it increases security risks and audit costs. These organizations increasingly need a pre-integrated, scalable solution that automates user provisioning and certification tasks with preventive and detective controls. Oracle Access Governance with its deep native integrations to Oracle Cloud Applications and Oracle Fusion Risk Management, and with direct integrations to other systems, offers distinct advantages unlike any other IGA solution in the market. These advantages include:

Rapid Onboarding of Oracle Cloud Applications for Centralized IGA

The set up of Oracle Access Governance for Oracle Cloud Applications can be completed with a few clicks. This is enabled by native integrations that not only eliminate set up time and effort but also make the connection future release proof. In contrast, other IGA solutions require months of research and coding, leading to costly set up efforts, and constant integration validation efforts with the ongoing updates that happen in these applications.

So, with this built-in capability, when a user is onboarded to Oracle Cloud Applications, Oracle Access Governance automatically detects and provisions the right roles and permissions for the user in real time and orchestrates the updates across all required systems. Likewise, this native integration tracks ongoing changes pertaining to employees and users, such as role changes, department moves, or terminations, which are then instantly synchronized across systems to prevent stale access.

A single instance of Oracle Access Governance can provision to and govern multiple Oracle Cloud Application domains. This is significant since it helps centralize, simplify, and reduce costs to govern user access across multiple domains of Oracle Cloud Applications.

Animated workflow of application onboarding in Access Governance
Figure 2: Rapid application onboarding with Oracle Access Governance Orchestrated Systems

 

With this rapid onboarding of Oracle Cloud Applications to Oracle Access Governance, businesses can quickly realize the benefits of centralized IGA, including:

  • Faster access – Users get access to the right resources immediately, improving productivity and reducing security gaps.
  • Timely revocation – Instant revocation of access when an employee changes roles or leaves the company thereby reducing risk.
  • Better auditing for compliance needs – Always up-to-date access records, eliminating discrepancies that arise from manual or batch-based synchronization used by other solutions.
  • Lower costs – With centralized user access governance of multiple Oracle Cloud Application domains.

User Provisioning with Granular Data Access Controls and Preventive Separation of Duties (SoD)

A key aspect of securing access to Oracle Cloud Applications is to verify that users are granted the right level of permissions to the system. This entails assigning them valid roles and granting the least required privileges to do their jobs. With Oracle Access Governance, Oracle Cloud Application users can be granted access using Role, Policy, and Attribute-Based Access Controls (RBAC, PBAC and ABAC). For instance, user can be dynamically granted permissions based on their job role (e.g., sales manager), policy (e.g., birth right policy), attribute (e.g., job location), or a combination of them. This provides the added layer of control to provision the right level of user access to these applications.

Besides securing the access using RBAC, PBAC and ABAC models, the native integration enables Oracle Access Governance to also assign granular data access controls, e.g., Security Context for Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), dynamically at the time of first provisioning. This allows for an extra level of information access control by assigning “least-privilege” to a user, such that only authorized users can view or modify specific information based on constraints defined in Oracle Cloud ERP. This correct assignment of Security Context defines accurate data access boundaries upfront at the time of provisioning, thus eliminating excessive permissions and audit failures. And since Security Context in Oracle Access Governance is automatically synchronized with that in Oracle Cloud ERP, the assignments always remain current and accurate.

Animation for access provisioning with granular data access control in Access Governance.
Figure 3:  Access provisioning with granular data access control (e.g., with Security Context for Oracle Cloud ERP)

 

Oracle Access Governance is the first IGA solution to enforce Separation of Duties (SoD) controls across Oracle Cloud Applications and others through native integration with Oracle Fusion Risk Management, part of Oracle Cloud ERP.  This functionality can be enabled without any additional configuration. When added as an option during onboarding of Oracle Cloud Applications to Oracle Access Governance, it dynamically implements SoD checks for Oracle Cloud Applications access requests and present them during access certifications as well. By doing so, it mitigates risks of fraud, conflicts of interest, and privacy violations.

This built-in functionality allows Oracle Access Governance to activate one set of SoD rules, maintained in Oracle Fusion Cloud Risk Management, across Oracle Cloud Applications and other systems. Further, with this solution the SoD compliance workflows get centrally managed in Oracle Access Governance, and information is automatically synchronized with Oracle Fusion Risk Management for various reporting purposes. The code-less workflows in Oracle Access Governance enable compliance workflows to be set up quickly and approvers can receive real-time alerts to approve, deny, or reassign access based on applicable compliance guidelines. The AI-assisted analytics and interactive dashboards enable approvers to make timely and informed decisions.

Animation for the native integration for Oracle Fusion Cloud Risk Management and Oracle Access Governance
Figure 4:  Native integration of Oracle Access Governance and Oracle Fusion Cloud Risk Management for dynamic SoD violation check and remediation during access request

 

Real-time Access Visibility and Automated Lifecycle Management

Oracle Access Governance offers an enterprise-wide dashboard for real-time visibility into access profiles across the enterprise and with drill down capabilities. The analytics-driven, actionable intelligence dashboard enables business owners and managers to detect and prevent unauthorized access, while helping auditors demonstrate adherence to policies, security standards, and compliance.

Through the native integrations, Oracle Access Governance continuously tracks changes in Oracle Cloud Applications, e.g., in Job Roles, Security Contexts, and Context Values, and maintains an accurate access inventory in this enterprise-wide dashboard. This information combined with access insights from other systems connected to Oracle Access Governance, empowers users to manage access more effectively.

Animation for Oracle Access Governance Enterprise-wide Browser for real-time insights into access profiles across the enterprise
Figure 5:  Oracle Access Governance Enterprise-wide Browser for real-time insights into access profiles across the enterprise

 

The native integration of Oracle Access Governance and Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) pulls real-time employee records and updates to automatically govern their access to various systems, throughout their tenure with the company. This helps verify that an employee’s access and permissions are always commensurate with their role. To that effect, Oracle Access Governance automatically updates access when employees join, move roles, or leave, preventing excessive or stale privileges. It can also trigger event-driven or periodic access reviews based on job changes, department moves, or periodic compliance requirements.

 

Animation for Oracle Access Governance automatically triggers access reviews and updates permissions based on change events like new employee onboarding (Joiner), job changes (Mover), and employee off-boarding (Leaver)
Figure 6:  Oracle Access Governance automatically triggers access reviews and updates permissions based on change events like new employee onboarding (Joiner), job changes (Mover), and employee offboarding (Leaver)

Extending the Integration Across the Enterprise

While Oracle Access Governance provides the deepest integration with Oracle Cloud Applications, it also extends identity governance across the enterprise to support both Oracle and non-Oracle applications and services. This enables:

  • One Unified Platform – To manage access across cloud, on-premises, and mobile systems from a single console.
  • Multi-System Correlation – To gain a unified view of access across disparate systems, eliminating blind spots in governance.
  • Direct and generic Integrations – To securely integrate with applications and systems with low code development.
  • End-to-End Governance – To help verify consistent access policies and compliance enforcement across the entire IT ecosystem.

The Best Access Governance Solution for Oracle Cloud Applications and More

Unlike other governance solutions, Oracle Access Governance is purpose-built for Oracle Cloud Applications and OCI. Access Governance enables unified governance across enterprise applications, provides real-time security, and helps organizations achieve compliance goals and increase operational efficiency.

With Oracle Access Governance, you gain seamless control, enhanced security, and confidence that your organization is always protected across Oracle and non-Oracle systems.

For more information on Oracle Access Governance, see the following resources: