Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Focusing on our views about deployment challenges, and some of the important trends related to Identity and Access Management

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 - Posts

Is IAM like a jellyfish?

I couldn't resist the blogging exercise of connecting these two seemingly unrelated concepts. In the world of blogging, for better or worse, often the best way to attract readership is with a strange title and lead-in. I think the title of this blog entry covers that approach sufficiently. However thinking of IAM technologies as being like a jellyfish isn't actually my idea. In fact it is an idea that I just heard at the just completed Gartner IAM Summit in London England.

So how can the IAM market and jellyfish be related? As a starter just take a look at the diagram below - not the details, just the overall visual look. Stand back a bit, and yes, I think you would say it looks like a Jellyfish flowing in the tide from right to left. (sorry that the graphic is cut off on the right margin....you can still get the "flavor" of a jellyfish). In reality this diagram is Gartner's visual summary of the various technologies that make up the IAM market and how they flow from basic categories, such as identity administration, access management, identity auditing etc.... But add a handful of differentiating color and voila! -- the essence of jellyfish.

From my years of ocean sailing and swimming I have had the "pleasure" of seeing, sometimes a bit closer than I had wanted, many jellyfish. And yes, this diagram does look like a jellyfish to me. But are IAM technologies in anyway similar to a jellyfish? Actually, yes in many ways. Let me give you some of the ways I came up with:

IAM technologies, like Jellyfish react and adjust quite quickly to their current environment...or better said, to the current in their environment. Why else would there be so many technology strands in the IAM market?
IAM technologies like most jellyfish are not isolated in their environment -- they live and interconnect amongst their own kind....sometimes in small numbers and sometimes in very large numbers depending on the environment.
One IAM deployment in the wild doesn't look exactly like another one, just like one Jellyfish is bigger/smaller, longer, wider, than another one even of the same species. Organizations have built and our building their IAM systems in reaction to their existing systems and organizational priorities....and thus ending up being different.
IAM systems, just like their jellyfish brethren need to be highly flexible, interconnected, and responsive to their environment to be most successful.

Maybe you can think of some more similarities if you have some free cycles. Do I think the connection between IAM and jellyfish is particularly important? Not particularly. My real takeaway is that diagrams such as this one really frame the tremendous variety and broad relevance of IAM technologies today and also provide a parallel warning to the undereducated - if you stick your hand into the wrong place or in the wrong way, you risk getting stung.