Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) addresses the business needs of organisations by managing a growing number of digital identities quickly and easily and in turn reducing the high costs and risks associated with the manual provisioning and de provisioning of user identities.

Also by simplifying the management of new security initiatives, such as smart cards and certificates reduced implementation timescales can be achieved. Additional efficiencies can be gained by reducing help desk costs for simple tasks such as password resets.

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 provides an integrated and comprehensive solution for managing the entire lifecycle of user identities and their associated credentials. It provides identity synchronisation, certificate and password management, and user provisioning in a single solution that works across Microsoft Windows and other organisational systems.

Enabling IT organisations to define and automate the processes used to manage identities from creation to during role change through to departure or retirement. The improved web-based user interface, based on SharePoint Services, includes workflow management and integration with Outlook provides seamless approval/denial for workflow requests.

Benefits of the solution include

• Increased efficiency through integration with the existing infrastructure
• Improved operational efficiency, single view of a user across multiple systems
• The integration of strong authentication tools
• Reduction of integration and customisation costs
• Improved security and compliance
• Reduction in help desk costs

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