newsletter, ssoplugin

● SSO Plugin newsletter

posted by John B on 10th May 2012

Welcome to a newsletter from Java System Solutions. In our newsletter you will find recent SSO Plugin product developments, information on how to reduce BMC licensing costs, partner news, and feedback from SSO Plugin clients.

Charitable work

We were recently approached by Action for Children to provide an SSO solution.

Danny Kellett commented, "After discovering the good work AfC perform for disadvantaged children in the UK, I recommended a free production license."

Brychan Watkins, head of IS at the charity, provided the following feedback:

At Action for Children we help over 150,000 vulnerable children and young people, with over 430 sites across the UK. Providing an efficient IT support infrastructure is key to our current and future success. A central part of providing this support is the BMC Remedy ITSM system.

To help improve our Remedy system we required a robust and efficient SSO solution and that's where Java Systems Solutions with their SSO Plugin came in.

It took just three days from our initial contact to having it installed on our test system. With guidance from Danny it took us less than an hour to install and configure, and it worked first time. We now have a working environment with SSO enabled in a fraction of the time that I had expected from an SSO integration. This is not only a testament to the product but also to the efficiency and expertise of the Java Systems Solutions' staff. They have also kindly donated the license for the product to us for which we are extremely grateful.

I would like to end this by saying thank you to John, Danny and all those at Java Systems Solutions for their help and support.

Product news

Every day, BMC and HP professionals contribute ideas to improve SSO Plugin. Some of the highlights are detailed below.

SSO Plugin certified for HP Service Manager

We're very pleased to announce that SSO Plugin has been formally certified by HP as a solution for the Service Manager and Service Request Catalog ITSM product set.

Users of the HP ITSM suite can now enjoy the same quality SSO solution that is available for the BMC ITSM platform, with a consistent user interface and feature set across both platforms, ensuring administrators can transfer their skills if necessary.

SSO Plugin for HP Service Request Catalog

The HP Service Request Catalog product is a very attractive SRM product and popular in the ITSM market. Previously, the SSO Plugin integration was driven from HP Service Manager. Users asked us to simplify the deployment and SSO Plugin now provides an SSO integration with no dependency on HP Service Manager.

SSO Plugin's Integrated Windows Authentication continues to evolve

There are always new 'edge cases' being presented to JSS with respect to IWA support (ie open IE, sign in to HP or BMC ITSM and do not get prompted for a login) and a number of interesting (to us!) cases have been addressed in the 3.5.10 release. If you are using a list of AD controllers in the SSO Plugin configuration, it's worth upgrading.

The work on the IWA support demonstrates that JSS are the industry leading provider of SSO for the Java platform.

Integration to BMC Analytics/SAP Business Objects and BMC Dashboards

We received feedback that whilst the user synchronisation between these products removed vast amounts of duplicated work, because BMC do not provide a single user repository between products, there was no single group in which a user must be a member to gain access to other products.

In SSO Plugin 3.5.10, administrators can now create a group in which a user must exist in order to gain access to third party products.

Replacement login page for BMC Mid Tier and the end of the BMC AREA LDAP plugin

Administrators told us that the default BMC login page is unattractive and confusing. Users had no idea which credentials to enter into the 'authentication' field.

Administrators have reminded us that setting up the BMC AREA LDAP is more effort than deploying SSO Plugin, which removes the need for the BMC AREA LDAP plugin in most cases, because it already has access to the Active Directory when AD integration has been configured.

In SSO Plugin 3.5.10, users without SSO access are directed to an attractive login page supplied by JSS. The login page allows for users to enter Active Directory or AR System credentials, without the need for the BMC AREA LDAP plugin. And the login page is well designed, making customisations an easier task.

The same feature also exists for the HP Service Manager version of SSO Plugin.

Bringing Ping Federate to BMC AR System and HP Service Manager

Many companies will proclaim that their SSO product supports SAML, but in reality SAML is complicated because implementations interpret the SAML standard. That's why products need to be validated against SAML providers.

We recently reported compatibility with Microsoft ADFS, and we are delighted to announce compatibility with Ping Federate, one of the most popular SAML Identity Providers in the market today.

We've worked with Ping to ensure SSO Plugin was fully compatible, and we were also interested to hear that they have little faith in OpenSSO as a useful SAML Service Provider.

Integrating BMC ITSM with OpenSSO

One of BMC's professional services consultants was asked to provide SSO for BMC ITSM in an OpenSSO environment. He selected SSO Plugin as the proven solution for BMC ITSM and built an integration to both BMC ITSM and Analytics. We have therefore brought a quality OpenSSO integration to the BMC product set where none currently existed.

SSO Plugin for Kinetic Request

Many BMC administrators will know of Kinetic's range of products, including Kinetic Request. We're pleased to report that after working with Kinetic, we can now provide SSO Plugin for Kinetic Request. Please contact Kinetic for more details of this package.

Reducing logging

Administrators told us they don't like to manage log files, and that whilst SSO Plugin informational logging was useful, it would also be great to see just warnings and errors. We've therefore added a 'warnings only' feature to SSO Plugin 3.5.10 for those who want to see nothing but messages of concern.

Reduce your BMC licensing costs today

If you're concerned that you're paying too much in BMC licensing, the License Manager application from Missing Pieces Software may be worth an evaluation. It will build a report on your license usage and identify waste, and if you're an existing SSO Plugin customer, it can be configured to provide more accurate results through SSO usage information.

Tip for BMC Administrators and Windows 2008

Danny Kellett has written a small article on how to disable Data Execution Prevention on Windows 2008 when installing AR System and ITSM.

BMC employee blogs about SSO Plugin

We discovered a blog entry on the BMC Communities website and, like us, we believe you will conclude the author was only thinking about SSO Plugin.

Compfort Meridian product manager wins Motorola Xoom tablet

Compfort Meridian have establsihed a successful SSO Plugin implementation team in eastern Europe. Piotr Orlanski, product manager at Compfort Meridian, has won a Motorola Xoom for his efforts in promoting and securing new SSO Plugin customers.

John Baker commented, "It's great to see BMC partners going the extra mile to deliver a quality SSO solutions for BMC clients. With no quality out of the box functionality, and a huge demand from customers for a quality solution, Compfort Meridian have shown a determination to deliver an excellent product with an excellent service".

Feedback from our customers

We put customer service first and would like to share a recent quote received after the JSS support team provided a rapid and accurate response to a question received on a Saturday afternoon:

That did the trick. We appreciate your quick support. I think your company should take over BMC support as we would never get the same fast and personal support from them.

In addition, the product is great. Have a great weekend.

David A, US client.

And one received after a shared desktop training session:

Thank you very much for your time today, it was extremely helpful. Lots of great information in that, I learned quite a bit!

Walker H, US client.

Danny Kellett commented, "Our customers continue to explain why JSS support is considered far more valuable than others in the industry".