Novell Access Manager
Integration and Interoperability
You don't have to replace your existing systems. Novell Access Manager™ integrates out-of-the-box with several leading identity stores including eDirectory, Active Directory and Sun One, and any standard HTTP application. No need to rip and replace anything.
Architecture Benefits
One way Access Manager achieves this integration is through the Access Gateway component—an HTTP proxy. As the access point for Web applications, it provides security via authentication, authorization, Web single sign-on, identity injection and data encryption—without requiring modification to Web applications.
Your administrator can configure different single sign-on policies for each resource and require different Authentication Contracts. When a user attempts to access a resource with an authentication requirement, Access Gateway redirects the user to Identity Server with a request for a specific Authentication Contract. After Identity Server provides the required validation, the user automatically returns to Access Gateway with a successful authentication and role information. The role information—which can be supplemented by additional queries of the user’s identity—determines whether the user is authorized to access the requested resource. Access Gateway also forwards identity information to the Web server, and you can use this information to personalize content or perform additional policy enforcement. For example, the policy-enabled identity injection feature of Access gateway, can leverage the Liberty Alliance Web Services Framework to extract identity information and then inject it into Web headers or query strings.
With Access Gateway, your existing Web applications can support new identity services without any modification, and you can narrow authorization requirements down to a specific URL. Access Gateway can encrypt Web server content, so there’s no need to install SSL certificates on each server. Access Gateway is available as a dedicated NetWare® service as well as a Linux* service that can host additional services, such as the Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network (SSL VPN). And because the single sign-on process is browser based, there’s no client to install on end-user machines.
Interoperability
Novell Access Manager 3.1 was built with interoperability in mind. Its architecture provides cross-platform support for any standard HTTP Web server, including Microsoft IIS and Apache. Access Manager also seamlessly integrates with the following applications (among others):
- Microsoft SharePoint*
- IBM WebSphere
- BEA WebLogic
- JBoss