Featured image: IBM Connections Cloud User Management Made Simple – overview

There is a lot to like about IBM Connections Cloud offerings, but you must keep in mind that there are user management requirements that remain with your company, even in a cloud only solution. And the reality is that IBM Connections Cloud does not easily or automatically integrate with other Identity Access Management (IAM) tools and platforms. This results in a need to either use the IBM provided interfaces with their limitations, or build your own integration to your existing IAM solution, or use a third party application to bridge the gap. That is what we will look at in this article - specifically BCC’s AdminTool for Connections Cloud.

 

Cloud Offerings.

At a very brief summary level, IBM Connections Cloud has four levels:

  1. Cloud Only – this consists of just the Social Cloud components of Mail, Connections, and Meetings. But infrastructure is fully managed by IBM.
  2. S2 – this adds to the mix Web Meetings, Collaboration and Mobile components, and introduces a hybrid mix of IBM and customer premise equipment.
  3. S1 – building on Cloud Only and S2, this level brings Verse, Calendaring, and Document Editors into scope.
  4. Standalone – this is really an a-la-carte option, mentioned for completeness but it does not remove the challenge of user management.

 

Challenges.

With a mix of IBM and customer on-premise activities required to provision and manage users, synchronization is a challenge since IBM Connection Cloud does not integrate directly with your on-premise IAM tools.

Additionally, with the Cloud Only level there is no real audit trail available. Delegation is limited since there are only four user types available, and only one is capable of creating and deleting users. The hybrid solutions (S2 or S1) complicate matters since there is a need to keep on-premise changes synchronized with the Cloud components. It also introduces a whole new complexity in trouble shooting since there is little to no log information to examine.

Even if you make use of an integration server for some automation assistance, it requires ongoing synchronization and maintenance in addition to the actual user administration.

 

BCC AdminTool for Connections Cloud.

Using BCC’s Admintool for Connections Cloud (ADTC) addresses these and many other issues. There is an excellent recorded webinar on this topic here. In the webinar, you will see a live demo of ADTC and some of the features that are demonstrated include;

  • Web-based portal for user administration
  • Customized User interface to match your corporate requirements
  • Control panels are used to customize content (what is displayed) and method (how it’s displayed)
  • Customization down to a location level, including different domains
  • Role-based profiles
  • Custom roles that are defined to suit your business
  • Granular delegation of administrative functions
  • Audit logging, so that logs can be examined and used for report generation
  • Additional authorization workflows that can be defined to create two-man rules

Take a look at the webinar for more details and a live demo showing how beneficial ADTC can be for your business.

  

 

Interested in AdminTool for IBM Connections Cloud?

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