Identity Management Success

This week’s tip involves architecture, and infrastucture planning for IdM / IAM.

1. Overplan your infrastructure

Network equipment, cables, WAN links, redundancy, throughput, etc. Identity Systems are network-centric, and *can* be network intensive. Carefully plan replication.

2. Overplan your capacity

Chances are better than 75% that you will need more disk, memory, cpu cycles, speed, and throughput than you think you do, especially if extending the Identity Systems to partners, customers, and suppliers.

3. Plan for virtualization

Virtualization is no longer just a “cool” or “trendy” buzz word. Plan for it, use it. In addition to server consolidation, effective virtualization will also provide expansion capabilities, enhanced testing capabilities, faster deployments, and effective disaster recovery. Virtualize development and test environments on the same hardare

Platform wars in Virtualization? Following these rules will greatly enhance your chances for a smooth, and successful server deployment:

• For UNIX and Redhat Linux environments, consolidate and expand with Solaris 10 Containers (zones)
• For pure Microsoft environments, consolidate with VMWare ESX Server, or Microsoft Virtual Server
• For heterogeneous enviornments, use VMWare ESX server
• For Linux-centric enviornments, use Xen
4. Perform SAN storage certifications early

This includes all virtual machines, operating systems, versions, hba’s, and patch levels. Extensively test cluster failover scenarios and validate how quickly control is returned to the disk

5. Plan for redundant LDAP stores
6. Plan for LDAP referral chaining
7. Plan for highly available, fault-tolerant, extensible databases

Ensure that databases can easily grow and expand, and wherever possible, use a clustered file system or better yet — a global or grid-enabled file system.

8. Plan for active passive physical, *and* virtual clusters