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Lighthouse Launches Next-Gen Cloud-Based IAM: Page 2 of 2

The same technology is available from different vendors, whether it's IBM, Oracle, CA or some other vendor, says Maass. The features map easily among the different IAM products because of the maturity level of the technology, so the value proposition has to come from elsewhere. In Lighthouse Gateway's case, the value proposition is presented as its customized user interface that overlays the underlying IBM technology, he explains.

Lighthouse Gateway provides a suite of identity management, Web access management and federated IAM capabilities designed to help customers protect their sensitive information, manage user access rights and entitlements, and adhere to compliance and privacy regulations. With the latest generation of Gateway, Lighthouse has updated three core features.

The user interface has been enhanced for self-service management so that users can manage tasks like password reset, access request and self-registration. The tools enable customers to select the most relevant applications to their businesses and install them within minutes using a point-and-click interface.

New "quick connect" technology includes pre-built profiles for popular SaaS platforms, including Salesforce.com, Concur and SuccessFactors, for federated single sign-on. Lighthouse Gateway enables IT administrators to federate to the SaaS platforms in a matter of minutes without having to build and deploy on-premise infrastructure. According to Lighthouse, this saves time, costs and overhead, but the technology was also designed to improve the end-user experience through the enablement of seamless and secure log-in to third-party applications without requiring IDs and passwords.

Maass stresses that Lighthouse's value proposition is not just in the IBM Tivoli technology it uses to run the service, but in the complete redesign of the interface. He says it's night and day between the standard Tivoli user interface and the new one. Lighthouse Gateway's manager console was designed to be highly graphical, largely point-and-click and automated.

"Our strategy here was understanding that our customers still want to be involved and want to touch their own policies and see stuff," Maass says.

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