Extreme Networks Identity Manager Overview

Extreme Networks Feature Brief

Challenges leading to reduced enterprise effectiveness:

• Handling access control of user accounts and
rights on-demand is labor-intensive

• Adapting access rights to changing organizational
roles is time-consuming

• Increasing network traffic noise interrupts business
productivity and compromises network integrity

• Multiple-point security products, often added as a
way to segment the network, require lengthy
configuration and manual labor

• Ensuring that regulatory compliance meets audit
guidelines is a complex process and requires
extensive preparation

Challenges leading to security and compliance deficiency:

• No transparency of enterprise-wide access rights
is currently available

• Firewalls’ enforcement points create more internal
network entry points with more complex policies

• Troubleshooting can take longer and amplify
security risks when multiple devices and applica­tions are involved

• Implementing the compliance framework is
not automated

• Monitoring wrongfully accumulated access rights
is difficult

The Solution

Extreme Networks® Identity Manager feature provides a
best-of-breed solution to bring user profiles, device,
location, and presence awareness to network managers
while enabling enforcement of corporate policies at
every network point of entry. Identity Manager provides
network-wide viewing and reporting of identities and
also helps administrators manage network-wide,
role-based policies for both users and devices. Applying
that intelligence consistently across the network enables
seamless mobility and on-demand access to applications
to maintain business continuity.

The Situation

As companies routinely handle extremely sensitive and private
information for individuals and businesses, they are also faced with
the challenge of finding ways to reduce operational risks associated
with governing the integrity, security, and privacy of the network
and data they manage. Not only does the challenge of identity
management move up and down the stack from the hardware layer
up to the business application level, but it also moves outside those
boundaries to the cloud and virtual computing environments.

The Challenges

Many businesses today are operating in a climate of strict
compliance, and are under increasing pressure to achieve
enterprise effectiveness. They struggle with managing access
rights for enterprise employees, outsourced staff, consultants,
and business partners across multiple systems, applications, and
platforms used for the business. Organizational changes and
rapid workforce growth create a challenge for IT departments in
consistently managing wide access rights for users while ensuring
access to the right applications at the right time and location.

Companies are increasingly driven by the need to find cost­effective ways to align to business processes, improve productivity,
and maintain application availability all while confirming network
access requirements. For most enterprises, the ability to control
access and monitor the network user, device, and location is
currently very limited.

Extreme Networks Identity Manager

Extreme Networks Feature Brief

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trademarks or trademarks of Extreme Networks, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Specifications are subject to change without notice.

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Corporate
and North America

Extreme Networks, Inc.
3585 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA 95051 USA
Phone [phone]

Europe, Middle East, Africa
and South America

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Asia Pacific

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Japan

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The Benefits

Increase Network Availability Identity Manager reduces network noise by enabling switches at the network edge to enforce the right policies

at the right time, then applying those policies consistently across the network, based on user profiles.

Reduce IT Support Costs
for Enterprises

Identity Manager reduces time needed to locate users or devices in the network. EPICenter

®

network
management software and ExtremeXOS® network operating system provide extensive information about
identities and their locations, which can reduce IT support and troubleshooting time.

Reduce Compliance and Audit Costs Identity Manager helps to meet compliance requirements such as HIPAA for healthcare service providers, SOX

for enterprises, and those mandated for agencies and organizations in the Federal framework.

Industry Standards-Based Technology Helps in working with a diverse set of products from server, network equipment, and software vendors.

Leverage Existing Network
Infrastructure

To deliver robust network access control existing Summit

®

, BlackDiamond® 8K, BlackDiamond 10K, and
BlackDiamond 12K series switches in the network can be used. This increases ROI and can reduce the
total cost of ownership.

Integration with Business Processes
and Custom Applications

ExtremeXOS InSite SDK provides the XML APIs to monitor and manage identities, as well as role-based
policies from independent third-par ty applications.

Reduce Training and Other Overhead ExtremeXOS delivers a consistent CLI framework across the switching products portfolio, and EPICenter

provides an intuitive user interface to quickly set up, provision and manage role-based policies.

The Technology

Identity Manager is available in the
ExtremeXOS 12.4 operating system or
later and EPICenter 7.1. Identity Manager
runs on the existing Extreme Networks
enterprise switching portfolio, eliminating
the need for a forklift upgrade. The
flexible and modular architecture of
ExtremeXOS allows for gathering and
collecting attributes from different
sources on the network (e.g. IT
applications and servers), which helps in
constructing identities and correlating
information from multiple sources.

Role-based access control policies are
enforced by configuration through
either EPICenter or the ExtremeXOS
based switch. An extensible framework
based on XML APIs is used for
communication between EPICenter and
the switches. When user or device
identities are discovered, the switch
determines if the identity can be placed
in one of the configured roles.

Figure 1: Identity Manager Report

Internet

5493-01

User: John
Role: Employee
Resource Access = Permit All

User: Alice
Role: Contractor
Resource Access = Deny Mail and CRM

ERP Applications

& Data

Customer Data

Inventory

Applications

Active Directory Server

RADIUS Server

LDAP Server

Role Internet Intranet Mail CRM/Database VLAN

Unauthenticated Yes No No No Default

Employee Yes Yes Yes Yes Default

Contractor Yes Yes No No Default

User: Bob
Role: Unauthenticated
Resource Access = Internet Only