Only Novell's product lacks integrated reporting tools. Novell's auditing logs are highly configurable but require third-party solutions, such as Crystal Reports, to analyze and report on the data. Business Layers provided an integrated Crystal Reports engine, with a large number of preconfigured reports offering plenty of views of provisioning activity. Access360 also provided a lengthy list of preconfigured reports and could specify reports tailored to Stuff4U's needs.
Business Layers' eProvision offers the easiest integration with both custom and off-the-shelf systems. Out of the box, its integrated workflow feature was one of the most flexible of the lot. EProvision offers password and resource self-service, and tops off its solution with a robust Web-based management system. At $237,000, eProvision's price comes in above Novell's, but it offers a much faster time to deployment and isn't missing any major features. This solution would be the first we would consider when bidding for EUA systems.
EProvision uses any LDAP directory as its local data store and requires a relational database for persistence of audit logs, transactions and workflow data. Its unique view of business and IT profiles as separate entities pushed it ahead of the competition. Rather than implementing a RBAC (role-based access control) solution, such as Access360's enRole does, eProvision defines business profiles and associates them with one or more IT profiles. A business profile comprises attributes such as the business unit, title and projects an employee is assigned to.
Using that information, the system applies the appropriate IT profiles, and correct resources can be provisioned for each employee. An IT profile is an associated set of resources and access rights that is particular to job position. This also lets nontechnical, business-focused employees be intimately involved in the provisioning process rather than relying on IT to manage the entire system.
Business Layers' architecture lets many types of systems be integrated into the provisioning process--far more than the PeopleSoft, Novell 5, Windows NT and Lotus Domino systems Stuff4U targeted. EProvision can be deployed with or without agents, depending on the systems being integrated. For legacy systems that store access rights in a relational database, eProvision can use ODBC and JDBC connectivity to poll the database and reconcile resource information. This is a common management method--all the solutions reviewed provide support for ODBC, JDBC and LDAP-based resource management. EProvision also offers XML and flat-file feeds to ensure easy integration with almost any custom application.
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