Single Sign On Plugin - Comparisons with AtriumSSO
Many companies claim they can implement SSO for the BMC AR System and we've therefore drawn up this chart which compares and contrasts different the different products. See a comparison in pictures.
| Feature | JSS SSO Plugin | BMC AtriumSSO | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||||
| Is it free? | Supplied with free professional services to ensure successful integration with organisation's SSO infrastructure. License fee for product. | Supplied free with AR System but requires expensive consultancy to integrate/deploy. Typical deployment will cost more than an SSO Plugin license. | ||
| Removes requirement to login | You still have to login to AtriumSSO! | |||
| Built for AR System | AtriumSSO is OpenSSO, an open source produced that has been killed off by Oracle. | |||
| Provides SSO for the AR System Mid Tier | Partial (see Mid Tier below). | |||
| Provides SSO for the Dashboards | Partial (see Dashboards below). | |||
| Provides SSO for the SAP Business Objects (BMC Analytics) | Partial (see Business Objects below). | |||
| Provides SSO for the AR System Windows User Tool | ||||
| Provides SSO for BMC ITBM | Partial: Documentation claims it does but no known installations. | |||
| Ease of installation | Typically in under an hour - the product is a mere 10megs. Simply drop the files into Mid Tier, restart Mid Tier and configure the product. | The product is a mere 650megs and runs separate from Mid Tier. Separate hardware is advised. Likely to require external consultant. | ||
| AR System features | ||||
| Provides an SSO Administration Console for the AR System | Allowing AR System administrators easy access to the SSO configuration in a familiar environment. | |||
| Provides user authentication reporting facilities | Allowing you to plan capacity management through being able to identify when, where and how people are using the AR System. | |||
| Automation scripts | JSS provides scripts to automate the configuration of the Active Directory, allowing you to implement transparent Windows Authentication in minutes. | |||
| Mid Tier features | ||||
| Attractive UI integrated to Mid Tier | ||||
| Warnings for common deployment problems |
All AR System servers are validated to ensure they are SSO enabled. JVM configuration issues highlighted to administrator. |
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| Case insensitive matching | Supported - mis-matched SSO user and AR System Login Name case are matched. | If SSO username case differs from AR System Login Name, SSO fails. | ||
| User aliasing | Mis-matched SSO and AR System User records are easily resolved. | |||
| Integrates with BMC ITSM Incident | Automatically raise incidents for non-SSO enabled users, allowing integration into existing support processes for resolving SSO issues. | |||
| Dashboards | ||||
| Provides SSO for BMC Dashboards | Partial. See below. | |||
| Single user repository between AR System and Dashboards | Automatically manage the Dashboards user repository, allowing the AR System User repository to become the single source of authentication data for users and groups. | Requires you to maintain two separate user repositories. | ||
| Manual login to Dashboards when SSO fails | ||||
| SAP Business Objects (BMC Analytics) | ||||
| Provides SSO for BMC Analytics | Partial. See below. | |||
| Single user repository between AR System and Business Objects | Automatically manage the Business Objects user repository, allowing the AR System User repository to become the single source of authentication data for users and groups. | Requires you to maintain two separate user repositories. | ||
| JasperServer Reports | ||||
| SSO access to Jasper Reports | ||||
| Single user repository between AR System and Jasper Reports | Automatically manage the Jasper Reports user repository, allowing the AR System User repository to become the single source of authentication data for users and groups. | |||
| Security | ||||
| Suitable for external clients | The SSO Plugin is installed at client sites with off-site clients using the product every day. | Not advised for 'security and load issues' (bottom of page 20 in reference guide). | ||
| Supported platforms | All modern JEE servers supported, i.e. Tomcat, Weblogic, Websphere, Sun Java Webserver. | Comes pre-built with Tomcat 6.0 and other platforms involve bespoke configuration. No support for Tomcat 5.5, which is the default Tomcat installation for most of the AR System user base. | ||
| SSO mechanisms | ||||
| Built-in Windows Authentication | Supports IE, Firefox and other browsers. | OpenSSO half supports Windows Authentication, but BMC do not support this module (see note 1). | ||
| Microsoft IIS front end | ||||
| Open ID | Supported with attractive user interface, fully integrated into the Mid Tier. | |||
| Support | ||||
| Product knowledge and support | JSS wrote the SSO Plugin from scratch and understand every aspect of it. The JSS support service is highly rated by BMC users. | AtriumSSO is an Open Source product so BMC didn't write it and are unwilling to support much of it - see "Important note" on page 12 of the AtriumSSO guide. The lack of support has been documented by BMC users on ARSlist, a popular BMC mailing list. | ||
| Specialist knowledge | JSS have assisted in many SSO integrations and have dealt with complex configuration issues with Active Directory, Siteminder, Cleartrust. JSS are working on SSO implementations every day. | BMC don't offer the same level of technical support as JSS. OpenSSO is aimed at people with a background in SSO development and was never designed to be easy to install/configure. | ||
| Product future | SSO Plugin is being developed every day and has a future in the BMC market. | Oracle, who own the rights to OpenSSO, have killed it off in favour of their own solution, hence the future of the product is questionable. | ||
Notes
- BMC AtriumSSO is a re-badged Open Source product called OpenSSO.
- OpenSSO comes with a range of SSO modules and BMC support a subset of those modules.
If you'd like to speak to a member of our technical support team and learn about how you can quickly implement SSO, please contact us.