Are you a Catalyst?

That catchy slogan can only mean one thing – it’s time for the annual Catalyst Conference (US edition), hosted by the Burton Group. Running from June 25-29 in San Francisco, the event will once again aim to stir things up by bringing together people in a forum where debates will rage and ideas will fly. One of the main conferences for all things identity, this years sessions seem to bring into focus 3 main topics that are heating up the identity discussion – interoperability of identity systems, the identity services needed to enable this, and the shift to fine-grained authorization.

As always, I look forward to seeing how the discussion has evolved. Role management, for instance, was a hot topic last year when everyone seemed to be embarking on a role management project. This year we are seeing the area of entitlement management starting to merge with role management as one of the original A’s of identity management – Authorization – is redefined. And as enterprises are getting more comfortable with the idea of SOA, the need for a well-defined identity services infrastructure is emerging rapidly. As I have mentioned in this blog a number of times before, Oracle’s own Fusion initiative views this as a key element in the definition of the next generation applications architecture. Oracle’s own Thomas Kurian will be giving a talk on the integration of IdM with Business Applications on Thursday (June 28). And Phil Hunt, one of the architects of Oracle’s proposed Identity Governance Framework, will be participating in a panel discussion on identity services.

And the burning question as always: what will Mike Neuenschwander do next?

So head out to San Francisco to catch up on whats going on in the world of identity. It’s a little like attending a crash course – a lot to absorb, but a great way to catch up on everything. If you will be there, drop me a line. The hospitality suites are always fun and a good place to chat (Oracle will be hosting theirs on Wednesday). See you there.