ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, today announced it has automated identity and access management (IAM) operations in ADManager Plus, the company’s Active Directory management and reporting solution. In addition, ADManager Plus now offers several features that help administrators streamline IAM and meet IT regulatory laws. A video of ADManager Plus’ new features is available at http://ow.ly/fhBOA, and a slide show presentation may be viewed at http://ow.ly/fhBp1.

Carrying out IAM in Active Directory manually or via scripts, PowerShell cmdlets and other traditional methods is inadequate to meet today’s challenges. The smart devices that let users access data anytime, from anywhere also pose several threats to data security. Mistakes in access provision can expose crucial information to the wrong users, thereby jeopardizing its integrity. Moreover, businesses must comply with HIPAA, SOX and other IT regulations that mandate accountability in data access and management.

“I’ve been using ADManager Plus for more than five years, managing Active Directory users and permissions,” said Margaret Sandler, IT security specialist at CareTech Solutions. “I am conducting weekly as well as quarterly Active Directory audits for SSAE16, and the new automation addition to this product will be a great help in managing the users’ accounts. It will eliminate some of the tasks that I perform manually and will automatically modify, move and alert when accounts are expired or need to be moved to different OUs. It will help me stay in control.”

“ADManager Plus caters to today’s Identity and Access Management needs driven by new-age data access methods and IT compliance requirements,” said Manikandan Thangaraj, director of product management at ManageEngine. “With the latest enhancements to ADManager Plus, administrators can automate user provisioning, the most crucial task in IAM, as well as write their own automation rules to solve a need specific to their business. Most importantly, it helps them fulfill IT compliance requirements easily.”

ADManager Plus 6 Highlights

ADManager Plus streamlines IAM in Active Directory, offering IT administrators “user management templates” that can be used to create a library of preconfigured access controls. Those access controls can be assigned to users as their position warrants, thereby reducing the possibility of errors in access management. While this standardizes access management procedures, ADManager Plus 6 is also capable of providing automation for several crucial Active Directory operations with new features, such as:

• Enhanced workflow engine: ADManager Plus now includes an enhanced workflow engine that allows organizations to define or implement their review-approve policies for all IAM operations in Active Directory. In other words, using this engine, organizations can determine to whom an IAM request should be routed for approval. The engine also allows a multiple-level approval process.
• Automatic task assigner: The ADManager Plus workflow engine can automatically assign a task to a specific agent, ensuring mission-critical tasks are carried out only by qualified technicians.
• IAM ticket repository: All the IAM requests generated in ADManager Plus and their outcomes can be documented. This not only helps establish accountability, but also helps the organizations conduct internal auditing.
• IAM automation in Active Directory: User provisioning, de-provisioning and other crucial tasks can now be automated in ADManager Plus. Workflows can be implemented for those automated processes. Provisioning templates let IT delegate IAM processes to non-technical personnel yet maintain the accountability needed for compliance.
• Automation rules and policies: Administrators can determine how an automated process should execute and trigger a cascade of processes automatically. For instance, businesses that hire contractors can automatically create user accounts when contracts begin, disable them when contracts terminate, and de-commission them after their retention period.

Combined, these features provide organizations the essentials to implement frameworks such as COBIT and to comply with IT regulatory laws.

Additionally, ADManager Plus offers a quick view for Group Policies to give administrators an idea of IT policies governing a set of users. Administrators also have an option to change policies from the quick view. Finally, ADManager Plus also now offers enhanced user access management capabilities from a set of prepackaged reports, including compliance-specific reports.

Pricing and Availability

ADManager Plus 6 starts at $495 and is available for download at http://www.manageengine.com/products/ad-manager/download.html. A fully functional, 30-day trial version is also available for download.

For more information on ADManager Plus visit www.manageengine.com/products/ad-manager/. For more information on ManageEngine, please visit http://www.manageengine.com; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.

Related ADManager Plus Resources

• Video: What’s New in ADManager Plus 6: http://ow.ly/fhBOA
• Slide show presentation: http://ow.ly/fhBp1
• Customer testimonials: http://ow.ly/f52Vb
• Support FAQs and User Forum: http://ow.ly/f532y

About ADManager Plus

ADManager Plus is a simple, easy-to-use Windows Active Directory management and reporting solution that helps AD administrators and help desk technicians with their day-to-day activities. With a centralized and intuitive web-based UI, the software handles a variety of complex tasks like bulk management of user accounts and other AD objects, delegate role-based access to help desk technicians, and generation of an exhaustive list of AD reports, some of which are an essential requirement to satisfy compliance audits. For more information on ADManager Plus, please visit www.admanagerplus.com.

About ManageEngine

ManageEngine delivers the real-time IT management tools that empower an IT team to meet an organization’s need for real-time services and support. Worldwide, more than 65,000 established and emerging enterprises - including more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 — rely on ManageEngine products to ensure the optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more. ManageEngine is a division of Zoho Corp. with offices worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan and China. For more information, please visit http://www.manageengine.com/; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com/, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.

ManageEngine is a trademark of Zoho Corp. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: ManageEngine, real-time IT, Zoho, ADManager Plus, Active Directory, Identity and Access Management, IAM, network monitoring, network management, performance monitoring, end user experience, cloud monitoring, virtualization, cloud, IT management, business service management, user experience monitoring, workflow automation