Clean out your legacy identity manager.

Spring cleaning — it’s the time of year when you purge the clutter, clear the cobwebs, file the taxes and visit the dentist. It’s when you tackle all those unsavory tasks prowling in the back of your mind for months. While you’re at it, don’t forget about your identity management software.

It’s always easier to take on a daunting task when you have a checklist — it’s a clear and foolproof roadmap to completion and all you have to do is execute. To help you spring clean and improve your password management system, we at Avatier have compiled our top identity manager legacy migration best practices.

To get started, take a look at your identity manager account mapping. In your identity and access management software, your password management software must be able to map and capture all accounts for a specific user, and it’s critical to plan for incorporating the existing user base. Once all account IDs are connected, you can seamlessly manage terminating network access and leverage password reset tools to lock and unlock accounts.

Next, clean up your directories. Start by identifying accounts out of compliance and those that are no longer in use. Look for accounts with missing attributes for key elements, and scour existing user access protocols.

Once you’re confident that your directories are clean, it’s time to tackle naming conventions. When you merge legacy systems with newer technologies, standardized naming conventions across all platforms will spare you headaches down the road.

You’re now ready to review organizational needs around identity management and identify broken processes. Solicit suggestions and feedback from users, and meet with your audit control and access governance teams to secure buy-off on your identity management software.

Make sure that you study and discuss existing protocols in your legacy system and specify nomenclature to facilitate your identity management compliance. This will expedite use case testing and user acceptance.

At this point it’s important to revisit identity manager roles and role mining. The fluidity of roles and access requirements over time could result in excessive access being granted inadvertently. So, take the time to validate your permission protocols before migrating to a new system.

Once you have validated your permission protocols, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to transfer your identity manager access privileges to the new solution. To simplify this process, establish your permissions configuration before migrating to a new identity management system. This will significantly improve your ability to leverage automation for many user provisioning, access management, access governance, and password management operations.

Now it’s time to upgrade to an identity access management holistic definition by adding assignments to your identity manager. This approach takes all aspects of identity assignments into account, not just access requests. Since an identity manager automates workflow approvals, request processes for all assignments are secure, streamlined and subject to built-in audit controls.

Next-generation identity management software leverage an elegant connector framework to deliver better automation. Make sure that you extend capabilities to their maximum advantage by adding more automated connectors to your key systems. Bear in mind that the incorporation of each application into the automated solution will reduce the number of manual service tickets for the IT administration team.

Once you’re ready to migrate to your new identity management software, review and resolve problematic audit findings. Given the power of automation in next-generation identity and access management software, it’s likely that issues can be proactively resolved as part of the migration project. Keep your audit team engaged in the process to configure a solution that best fits your needs.

Spring cleaning before migration to a next-generation identity management software will pay off in spades, and full automation will make your life so much easier. So what are you waiting for?

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Learn the Top 10 Identity Manager Best Practices to lower your migration risk. Use this identity manager planning guide to ensure a smooth transition to Identity Management HD.