IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] Reviews

It’s a very flexible and customizable product.

• It provided a secure and robust end to end security solution.
• You can fine tune authentication and authorization
• It’s also easily scalable.

• Installation and configuration.
• If you don’t know the requirements of the supporting components, it could be complicated to install and this has been improved in the later versions that are renamed to IBM Tivoli Security Access Manager.
• Also the knowledge base articles on the internet are limited.

Several years.

No issues encountered.

This is a very stable product that can run forever.

There are no issues with scalability with this product. Easily to do with no downtime.

Customer Service:

Good. Nothing to complain about.

Technical Support:

The technical support are very skilled and has helped solve all issues that I needed help with in a timely fashion.

No previous solution used.

Not as straight forward as Microsoft products where the dependencies are bundled in the installation.

I was part of the in-house team and we managed to handle it without the help from the vendor.

The setup cost is like any other product, and once setup, this product requires very low maintenance.

No other options were evaluated.

Most often IBM Tivoli Access Manager is not involved when backend applications are developed an this can sometimes cause the applications to not function properly and you need to spend time troubleshooting and do changes in the application.

An IBM Tivoli Access Manager technician should be involved from the start when developing a new application.

Centralized policy management and reverse proxy-based architecture make it very flexible in terms of deployment, adoption, and implementation. SSO capabilities over various technologies is another strength of this product.

This product enhanced the overall security at perimeter and improved user experience via SSO. A central place for policy and credentials simplifies the authentication over application landscape.

The product has not been updated with emerging technologies over the years specifically around AJAX, REST and Mobile app integration. Also the federation capabilites are very limited.

I have deployed this product at various clients over the last 10 years.

Initial deployment of the product is always critical and issues do come up but not due to limitation in the product. Most of the issues were around bad planning or incorrect deployment.

No, there were bugs identified many times but mostly they were fixed via patch release or a workaround was offered.

No, if deployed correctly it is highly scalable product.

Customer Service:

Fantastic customer service from IBM.

Technical Support:

Technical support is good as you can raise issue any time and based on criticality of the issue IBM can provide support immediately. In some cases even on-premise support is also available.

A home grown solution was replaced by ISAM to change and configure SSO quickly for applications and at the same time using a scalable product was other major consideration.

The initial setup is always complex due to number of applications and user base involved. As the product is a front door for all applications this is very critical and complex setup. Also due to internal and external users and multiple authentication mechanisms involved for different type of users it gets complicated.

IBM team was used for the initial deployment and support and the support provided by them was fantastic. They offer quality consultants all across the globe with short notice.

Yes, it was compared with Siteminde.

This is a great product with proven history. A little better planning is required before deploying it. Given the change in web technologies and SSO protocols it might be better to check other products in market too.

• WebSEAL
• SSO

The WebSEAL reverse proxy is great for protecting your critical systems.

There is always room for improvement in all areas.

On and off for five years.

Yes, because there are so many moving parts it can often be difficult getting it right first time. Linux is more difficult than Windows but I feel Linux is more stable.

Not once it’s is installed.

No issues encountered.

Customer Service:

Good.

Technical Support:

Very good.

No previous solution used.

Complex. Like I mentioned, there are so many moving parts and I had issues with DB2 installation and patching it up to latest versions. This seems typical but others may have had better experiences.

Vendor. Their experience was phenomenal.

No other options evaluated.

Try to install a few times on various platforms to familiarise yourself with any issues.

Protection of web applications

Simplified deployment of web applications. The ISAM products centralises authentication and authorization giving a shorter time-to-market in the development of new web sites/applications

Since ISAM 7, and especially version 8 IBM has moved from software-install to appliance based (virtual or hardware) this really improves the speed of new patches and releases. IBM promised to release a new appliance-firmware every quarter, so far they kept their promise.

10+ years.

You do need to train to add to your skill set, and need to fully understand the possibilities and features which takes a while. Since I've been using it for over 10 years it is no longer difficult for me to deploy. Of course with new version some things change, so reading the documentation is quite useful sometimes.

Since its birth it is an unbelievable stable product. I know of a deployment that did not receive any maintenance for several years and it was still working.

Nope, it is designed to be very flexible. It can handle any size website.

Customer Service:

We as a Premium Business Partner have some advantages in being able to contact the developers more easily. Our customers can raise tickets, and depending on their contract, they are suitably assisted by IBM.

Technical Support:

It has been good for long time.

Nope, somehow I ended up a IBM Business Partners, always using ISAM. But are also using IBM Security Identity Manager, IBM Security Directory Server, IBM Security Directory Integrator, IBM Federated Identity Manager. Basically all IBM Security Identity and Access Management offerings except IBM Tivoli Access Manager for ESSO (confusing naming, but a really different product that does not really combine with all the others in my humble opinion).

With the firmware appliance it is easy as pie.

I'm part of a IBM Premium Business Partner, we are specialised in IBM IAM deployments. In many occasions IBM Netherlands is requesting our services to get the job done.

An ROI, is for most customers not easy to make being a security solution. It gives more hassle than not using it, insurance-wise you could say. Once a customer has chosen it they stick with it, I did not see many customers abandoning it due to ISAM not performing or not being satisfied.

Ensure you got your team trained and get external expertise for your architectural design and first deployments. While learning on the job, your team can take over after a while.

I like the primary function of this product allowing the administration of user/network accounts with a fair amount of ease.

Tracks and assists us with Roles associated to each user.

Need better documentation on usage and admin tasks.

It has been used for at least five years but I have only been working with it since August 2014.

We have had stability issues lately with the hardware and SAN that the product runs on.

We implemented this through a vendor.

Scalability and the easy integration with existing web applications with no or minimal change to applications.

Tivoli Access Manger lets you separate security from applications and manage at one place. Several applications can be rolled into to the same security model.

Redundant Policy servers had to be manually configured using LB.

12 years.

No

No

No

Customer Service:

Excellent.

Technical Support:

Excellent.

It is straightforward. However it also takes experience to roll out this product.

We used a vendor team and they were excellent.

CA Siteminder was considered.

ISAM 8.0 the new version of Tivoli Access Manager may be considered for large web security implementations.

• Password management
• Single sign on
• Provisioning and de-provisioning of account
• Unified Directory Server

Before solution implemented it took around 2-3 weeks to get all the necessary account information for a new employee in my organization. Since implementation, this now only takes a few minutes. As soon as HR submit all their data the user account is generated and the user gets their username and password.

Also, we have many applications and before SSO the users had to remember all the different passwords. We have many legacy applications and they had different password policies that were not always as strong as they should be. Now, however, we have one password for all the applications, and one password policy.

Cross-domain authentication.

Approximately 7 years.

Yes - we face a few issues, related to our configurations and networking.

No

No

Customer Service:

7/10

Technical Support:

8/10

No previous solution used.

It was complex for us as we have multiple domains.

We used a vendor and I would rate them 7/10.

The solution has smoothened the process of account provisioning and therefore our employees is productive from day one.

We looked at Oracle and a Microsoft solution with IDM.

Try to get the maximum of using standard functionality of the product, and only do customization if you really need it.

Tivoli Access Manager (or IBM Security Access Manager) is a fully featured web authentication, sso and authorization product.The product supports multiple user information repositories and also integrates with a variety of strong authentication solutions.Supports reverse proxy as well as adapters placed directly on web servers and app servers.Later product versions supports fine grained authorization as well as XACML based authorization configuration. The DP integration provides support for authn and authz for web services.

Complex to install and run. Requires the full IBM stack to reach full potential.

Tivoli access manager enables integration with user session management and Web Sphere Data Power in web services and web 2.0 environments.Authentication and authorization management for online business initiatives and portals implementations are centralized.Access controls for .NET, Java, Exchange servers and Microsoft Share point implementations are also centralized.Capabilities of advanced security are enhanced to support strong, flexible authentifications and authentications based on risks as well as critical internet vulnerabilities.Malicious, fraudulent, accidental behavior by staff and internal users are high level security threats that are prevented by Tivoli access manager.It also delivers Web SSO that is consistent with users on heterogeneous systems.

You must be skilled to use Tivoli Access manager. I had to undergo training to use Tivoli access manager, which was another expense exclusive of the purchase, but it was worth it.

Tivoli access manager securely manages access to critical data and applications to businesses, as well as convenient and fast access to systems by authorized users. It consists of a user registry and an authorization service, that includes an authorization engine and database, as well as a resource manager. It has a family for e-business, enterprise SSO, and operating systems. I have used it for two years now.