InfoWorld review: Microsoft ADFS 2.0 and Forefront Identity Manager 2010

Forefront Identity Manager 2010 is reviewed in this article. 

Forefront Identity Manager 2010 Forefront Identity Manager 2010 is a powerful platform for managing user identities, credentials, and identity-based access policies for both Windows and non-Windows environments. In FIM 2010, Microsoft took smart card and certificate management and merged it with identity lifecycle tools to streamline administration and improve user security and compliance. FIM 2010 also empowers users through self-service tools to manage their own group memberships or reset their user password from the Windows logon page. FIM 2010 is based on Web standards for greater extensibility and will work with third-party certificate authorities.

One area that got a lot of attention in FIM 2010 is policy management. The administration UI is a SharePoint-based system that uses natural language queries and menu-driven controls to generate rules and policies for managing users. The rules can be applied automatically to other users and groups based on various criteria. For example, you can create a rule to automatically add a new user to a group, issue a one-time password for a smart card, and push the user's email address and telephone number to another user directory while flagging HR to issue a request for a new health insurance policy.