Centralized User Management for the IBM Virtualization Engine
On-demand systems management via a single, consolidated interface, using IBM's Virtualization Engine.
Date Posted: February 2, 2006
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What is Centralized User Management for the IBM Virtualization Engine?
The IBM Virtualization Engine (VE) is one of the first big on-demand initiatives from IBM Systems and Technology Group. The objective behind VE is to develop and deliver a single, consolidated, centralized, and easy-to-use management interface for managing and virtualizing various resources including servers, storage, networks, etc. These resources are physically distributed in different environments, which are managed by various management servers. These management servers and managed resources are hosted on different platforms.
The user accounts (required for accessing the resources) are often application-specific (for example, LDAP-based users for distributed applications) or platform-specific (for example, operating-system users) and must be created with application- or platform-specific tools. Therefore, a mechanism is required that enables the use of a single user interface for managing users in these various systems.
IBM products such as Tivoli Identity Manager address, with more advanced functions, the challenges of user management for enterprise users. Centralized User Management for IBM VE specifically addresses technologies that are part of the Virtualization Engine initiative, thus providing a better "out-of-the-box" experience for administrators of the IBM Virtualization Engine in managing distributed users using Virtualization Engine Console.
Centralized User Management for IBM VE makes it possible to manage heterogeneous users from one console, thereby minimizing the administrative overhead.
How does it work? The user interface, delivered as part of the Virtualization Engine console, allows administrators to manage distributed users in a consistant way. Centralized User Management for IBM VE includes basic functions, such as the ability to create, modify, delete, and search the users and user groups, as well as the ability to synchronize passwords across Linux and LDAP user registries.
Currently, this technology supports management of users and groups in LDAP-based and X-Linux® user/account management systems. Future plans include enhancement of functions and support of more user registries in different operating systems.
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| | About the technology author(s):
Ramamohan Chennamsetty, an IBM senior software engineer in the IBM Systems and Technology group, is responsible for security architecture and the design of the Virtualization Engine.
Shama Gulamhussain and Therese Dalton work as a software engineers for the IBM VE security development team.
Significant contributions were made from David G. Kuehr-McLaren and Janette Wong (architects of Tivoli user-management components) and other members of the IBM Software Group.
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For platform(s):
AIX, Linux, Windows, Red Hat Linux, iSeries, Linux for zSeries
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For topics:
resource management, security, Systems management, On Demand Business, Resource virtualization, System administration, Privacy
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