More About OIM

Explain the Architecture of Oracle identity Manager?

The Oracle Identity Manager architecture consists of three tiers

Tier 1: Client:

The Oracle Identity Manager application GUI component reside in this tier. Users log in by using the Oracle Identity Manager client.The Oracle Identity Manager client interacts with the Oracle Identity Manager server, providing it with the user's login credentials.

Tier 2: Application Server:

The second tier implements the business logic, which resides in the Java Data Objects that are managed by the supported J2EE application server (JBoss application server, BEA WebLogic, and IBM WebSphere). The Java Data Objects implement the business logic of the Oracle Identity Manager application, however, they are not exposed to any methods from the outside world. Therefore, to access the business functionality of Oracle Identity Manager, you can use the API layer within the J2EE infrastructure, which provides the lookup and communication mechanism.

Tier 3: Database: The third tier consists of the database. This is the layer that is responsible for managing the storage of data within Oracle Identity Manager.

What is OIM user?

OIM User:  OIM user is an Entity/account which helps in managing the compliance of any organization and helps in providing the access rights according to its identity in the related organization.

How many Types of users are there in oracle identity manager?

• End-User Administrator:

An end-user administrator is a user who has access to both the Administrative and User Console and the Design Console. An end-user administrator may be tasked with managing access rights for users, changing the status of process tasks, or other tasks that include managing the Oracle Identity Manager environment from higher levels.

• End-User:

End users are normally recipients of resources provisioned to them by Oracle Identity Manager. They have the ability to log in to the Oracle Identity Manager Administrative and User Console to perform tasks such as viewing their user profiles, allocated resources, and assigned roles. By default, they can perform self-service tasks from the console.

What are Organizations in OIM?

An organization is a logical container of entities including users and other organizations defined within Oracle Identity Manager.

Oracle Identity Manager can have a flat organizational structure or a hierarchical structure, which means that an organization can contain other organizations. These child organizations are known as sub-organizations.

             

What Are Roles in OIM?

An Role is used to define the access rights that an entity may have. These defined roles use unique role names to differentiate them within the Oracle Identity Manager environment. A role may be associated with one or more access rights to Oracle Identity Manager Function. For example, a single role enables a user to create other Oracle Identity Manager user accounts and manage a specific organization.

 Roles determine the links and menus that are available to users when they log in to the console

OIM Terminologies

IT Resource:

IT Resource stores the configuration data of Actual Target Resource

 This helps to store configuration data related to targets.  We use this information in IT Resource and use this information to do  CRUD operations into target.

Resources: A resource is an logical entity which is an external system, service, or application with which Oracle Identity Manager communicates to perform either provisioning or reconciliation.

Provisioning: Provisioning is a process where Users are created, maintained and deleted in Resources or Target Systems. Provisioning of Users can be achieved by using connectors and other configuration in OIM to save their information in Target Systems.

What does User De-Provisioning mean?

User de-provisioning is the process of removing access of an individual user to an organization’s resources. This can include removing user accounts on individual machines or servers, or from authentication servers like Active Directory etc. It can also include removing a user’s machine entirely.

 De-provisioning is usually done when a user leaves an organization.

Forms in OIM: There are two types of forms in OIM which are used for showing and storing user data for provisioning.

1. Object Form

2. Process Form

Object Form: Object form is associated with Resource Object. It is visible at the time of provisioning/reconciliation. It is used for getting some input from the user while provisioning.

Process Form: This form is associated with provisioning process of any target resource. During a provisioning process, data flows to the actual target resource from process form.

What is Resource Object (RO)?

Resource Object is  a virtual representation of an account on a target system. If an OIM user has an account on the target system the user has an RO instance associated with it.

What is Adapter? What Adapters available in OIM?

An adapter is a Java class which helps in automation of process within OIM and is created by an Oracle Identity Manager user through the Adapter Factory.

Process Tasks adapters -  it can be attached only in task. automate completion of a process task and are attached to a Process Definition Form (AD user, OID User, etc)

Entity Adapters: When you want to perform any operation on any Entity like user/group then we use Entity Adapters. It can be attached only with forms. These adapters can be used

automatically populates a field on the OIM User form or custom User Form on pre-update, pre-delete, pre-insert, post-insert, post-update, or post-delete

Pre-Populate Adapter - specific type of rule generator attached to a user-created form field that can automatically generate data to the 'Process form' but does not save that data to the OIM database but does send that information to appropriate directory user object. The data can come from manual entry on a form or from automated entry from the OIM defined forms i.e This adapter is used for populating any field on forms (Process/Object) with some data.

Rule Generator - can populate fields automatically on an OIM form or a user-created form and save to the OIM database based on business rules

Task Assignment Adapter - automates the assignment of a process task to a user or group. It is used for assigning the task to any particular user/group.

              Task assignment adapter is used when you want to perform some operation to find the user to whom you want to assign task.

Some differences between rule generators and entity adapters are:

• Execution : Entity adapters can be triggered by Oracle Identity Manager on preinsert, preupdate, predelete, postinsert, postupdate, and postdelete. A rule generator adapter can be executed only on preinsert and preupdate.

• Field value modification : 

 The adapter populates the form field to which an entity adapter is attached. An Oracle Identity Manager user should not edit this value because the entity adapter will overwrite this modification. As a result, the modification will not be saved to the database.

 The adapter also populates the form field to which a rule generator adapter is attached. However, an Oracle Identity Manager user can edit this value because this modification will take precedence over the value that the rule generator adapter generates. Because of this, the modification will be saved to the database.

Difference between Event Handler and Entity Adapter

Event Handler  

1. Need to extend tcBaseEvent Class.
2. Can’t take any parameter from form      
3. Can’t return any value on the form         
4. Need to register EventHandler via register plug in with Steps :  Register Event Handler

Entity Adapter

1. No need to extend any class
2. Can take any field from form as parameter
3. Can return any value to any form field
4. depending upon the form
5. Usage is during any operation on any Entity like user/group.
6. Easy to implement using design console using steps :