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	Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Flame the author     In this article Introduction It's All About Risk A Risk-Based Policy Executive Summary Cost Factor Gotchas Make Your Case Online Only: Password Woes? Look to the User Epoll Results

You do your best to cost out a UAM (unified authentication management) implementation, but some expense always catches you unawares. Here's a short list of important items to factor into your overall cost analysis:

• Policy Development: Before you can roll out UAM, you must develop authentication policies. That means meeting with people from IT and business units to iron out a plan. You can probably estimate meeting lengths from past projects.

• Hardware and Software Deployment: Factor in time to install and test drivers and hardware.

• Enrolling and Updating Users: Depending on the authentication factor(s) used--passwords, tokens, biometrics or digital certificates--the time needed to enroll users will vary. Also count time needed to add users to the UAM database if they can't be imported.

• Self-Enrollment: Self-enrollment can be a big time and cost saver if you can positively authenticate users electronically. You can rely on existing credentials or distribute one-time passwords.

• Training: If you roll out new authentication methods, you must train people to use them and train your helpdesk to support them.

• User Support: Finally, you'll see an increase in user support costs. The more complicated you make authentication, the more helpdesk loads will increase. Sure, users can't loose their fingerprints, but dirty readers or bad placement can result in failed logins. Who they gonna call?