ITIL and IDM Buzz (HP, BMC and Courion)

I just read a pretty interesting post by Archie Reed on HP utilizing identity management to align the enterprise with ITIL objectives via automation (or aligning ITIL and IdM through automation). The example he gives is self service password management.

ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is a framework of best-practices focused on service delivery. Perhaps that is too broad a definition, but a good place to read about it is here.

The last time I remember ITIL and IdM used together was by BMC's VP, Somesh Singh. In this article (back in December), he stated:

“Technology solutions that build and maintain an IT infrastructure are no longer sufficient. Customers now need to be able to demonstrate business value of investment in their IT infrastructure, only BMC offers a suite of solutions founded on the principles of ITIL and Business Service Management,”

Although he didn't focus on automation as Archie did, nonetheless he brought ITIL into the IdM scene. BMC claims its Identity Compliance Manager is rooted in ITIL principles, and is "a graphical dashboard to report on policy compliance." So obvious, the slant here is towards compliance instead of automation, but a relation exists nonetheless. This kind of intrigued me, so I decided to do a few searches on it, and I found that Courion is polling its clients about usage of ITIL and COBIT. From their press release on their Converge conference this year, the following quote is relevant:

"When asked about best practice methodologies their organizations are undertaking today, thirty-two percent identified ITIL while twenty-one percent identified COBIT; eleven percent identified both. When participants were asked if their organizations found ITIL or COBIT to be beneficial to their risk management, governance, and compliance initiatives, sixty-four percent were not certain about ITIL, while sixty-two percent found COBIT to be beneficial. Thirty-two percent responded that their organizations are not using a best practice methodology."

Interesting, considering they recently launched a Compliance tool and Role Management tool. It seems to me that as the market completes deployments on Password Management and Provisioning implementations, and starts making Role Management and Compliance Management a reality - ITIL and COBIT will become more relevant to the identity discussions.

Technorati tags: Identity Management, ITIL, IDM, COBIT, HP, BMC, Courion