During the past three weeks, I have interacted with three major customers, in industries as diverse as transportation, apparel and entertainment, that had one thing clearly in common – each saw Identity and Access Management as a fundamental, critical enabler for new business models each company is pursuing.  It is all about knowing who your customers are individually, and interacting with them in a highly personalized, tailored way, in the context of their choosing.

Today I sat through a presentation that depicted IAM in the traditional context, as something that would improve compliance, increase operational efficiency and enhance security.  While these drivers are still valid, I couldn’t help but contrast those two views.

On one hand, IAM is considered to be very defensive in nature, necessary but burdensome.  On the other hand is an innovative vision that IAM is first and foremost a proactive, offensive weapon and business enabler, secondarily a protective shield.

Can you tell where I’d rather play?

A friend from an Oracle system integrator partner shared this video with me today – a bit of humorous, unabashed promotion for the Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On product.

So, please learn your password … or try out Oracle ESSO!

Sometimes I’m tempted to ditch my mobile phone, but frankly, I would feel naked without one. What will Ziggy do?

In the past few days, I became aware of innovations at Amazon Web Services that show how AWS continues to lead the industry in cloud computing.

The first product offering is the addition of Identity Federation to AWS Identity and Access Management Services, which gives customers:

the ability for you to use your existing corporate identities to grant secure and direct access to AWS resources without creating a new AWS identity for those users. This capability enables you to programmatically request security credentials, with configurable expiration and permissions, that grant your corporate identities access to AWS APIs and resources controlled by your business.

The second offering, “AWS GovCloud,” offers:

a new AWS Region designed to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements.

I find it intriguing that the same company that pioneered the industries of online book retailing and ebooks, is so innovative in cloud services and Identity Management.  Plus, I was able to order an new cordless drill from the comfort of my hotel room in San Mateo last night!  Thanks to Amazon and UPS, I think the drill will arrive Arizona before I do this week.

If you are going to invest in security to keep the bad guys out, please take the sage Pearls Before Swine advice and “Change the Top Secret Security Code” to something a bit less obvious than “Password.”