Connecting to Oracle

EmpowerID includes an Oracle connector that allows organizations to bring the user data (user accounts, profiles and roles) in their Oracle system to EmpowerID, where it can be managed and synchronized with data in any connected back-end user directories. When EmpowerID inventories Oracle, it creates an account in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse for each Oracle user, a group for each Oracle profile, and an EmpowerID Business Role for each Oracle role.

EmpowerID Oracle connector allows organizations to bring the user data in their Oracle system to EmpowerID, where it can be managed and synchronized with data in any connected back-end user directories. Once connected, you can manage this data from EmpowerID in the following ways:

  • Provision new users
  • Edit user attributes
  • Delete users

This topic demonstrates how to connect EmpowerID to Microsoft Dynamics AX and is divided into the following activities:

To connect EmpowerID to your Oracle system

  1. Log in to the EmpowerID Management Console as an administrator.
  2. From the EmpowerID Management Console, click the EmpowerID icon, and select Configuration Manager from the menu.
  3. In Configuration Manager, expand the User Directories node in the navigation tree, and then click Account Stores.

  4. Click the Add New button above the grid.
  5. In the Add New Security Boundary window that opens, select the Oracle Users Security Boundary type from the drop-down list and then click OK.

  6. In the Account Store Details window that appears, do the following:
    1. Type a name for the Account Store in the Account Store Name field.
    2. Type the name of an admin user in the User Name field.
    3. Type the password for the above admin user in the Password field.
    4. Type the FQDN or IP address to the server with the Oracle system.
    5. Type the name of the Oracle database in the Database field.
    6. Click Save.

  7. Back in the main screen of Configuration Manager, search for the account store you just created and then double-click it or right-click it and select Edit from the context menu.

    8. This opens the Account Store Details screen for the Oracle connector. The use of this screen is discussed in the next section.

To configure the Oracle account store

The Account Store Details screen contains three panes that are relevant to the Oracle connector--the General pane, the Inventory pane, and the Group Membership Reconciliation pane. To view reference information about a particular pane, expand the drop-down for that pane.

  • General Pane

    This pane is used to set general configuration information for the Account Store.

    • Account Store Name - This is the name you gave to the account store when you created it. To change this name, click the Edit button, enter a new name in the Account StoreFriendly Name window that appears and then click OK to close the window.

    • Resource System Name - This is the name of the resource system EmpowerID created for the account store. To change this name, click the Edit button, enter a new name in the Resource System Friendly Name window that appears and click OK.

    • Connection Account - This is the proxy account EmpowerID uses to connect to the Oracle system. To change the account, click the Edit button, enter a new name in the Resource System Friendly Name window that appears and click OK.

    • Maximum Accounts per Person - This specifies the maximum number of user accounts from this domain that an EmpowerID Person can have linked to them. This prevents the possibility of a runaway error caused by a wrongly configured Join rule. It is recommended that this value be set to 1 unless users will have more than 1 account and you wish them to be joined to the same person.

    • Icon - This is the image icon that represents this account store in the EmpowerID user interfaces.

    • Allow Person Provisioning - If enabled, EmpowerID provisions a Person object for each user discovered in the account store.

    • Allow RET Provisioning - Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement (RET) Inbox process to auto-provision accounts for this domain for users who receive RET policy-assigned user accounts, but have not yet had them provisioned.

    • Allow RET De-Provisioning - Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement Inbox process to auto de-provision accounts for this domain for users who still have RET policy-assigned user accounts, but no longer receive a policy that grants them a user account in the domain. De-provisioning only occurs if the de-provision action on the Resource Entitlement policy is set to De-Provision.

    • Enable Attribute Flow - Allows or disallows attribute changes to flow between EmpowerID and the account store.

  • Inventory Pane

    This pane is used to enable or disable inventory of the Account Store as well as to set the run schedule for the EmpowerID Inventory Job.

    • Inventory Schedule - This is the time span that occurs before EmpowerID performs a complete inventory of the resource system. The default value is 10 minutes. You can change this at any time by clicking the Edit button.

    • Enable Inventory - This allows EmpowerID to inventory the Account Store. The Inventory Job must be enabled for inventory to occur. This is discussed further in the below section.

    • Inventory Provision Request Workflow - This is the request workflow that is initiated when new accounts are discovered via the inventory feature. If you set this workflow, the Allow Automatic Person Provision and Allow Automatic Join Provision flags described below are ignored. You can enable this feature by clicking the Edit button.

      Inventory Provision Request Workflow is not enabled by default and should be used only where customization of the process is required.

    • Allow Automatic Person Provision on Inventory - This allows EmpowerID to provision EmpowerID people for new accounts discovered during the inventory process if they meet the Provision Rule specified by the Custom_Account_InventoryInboxGetAccountsToProvision SQL stored procedure. This setting is discussed further in the below section.

    • Allow Automatic Person Join on Inventory - This allows EmpowerID to join newly discovered accounts to people during the inventory process if they meet the Join Rule as specified by the Custom_Account_InventoryInboxJoinBulk SQL stored procedure. This setting is discussed further in the below section.

    • RBAC-Assign Initial Group Membership On First Inventory - This setting pertains to Active Directory account stores only.

    • Re-Inventory - Enabling this option re-inventories all changes.

  • Group Membership Reconciliation Pane

    This pane is used to enable or disable and schedule group membership reconciliation for the domain. When this function is enabled, EmpowerID dynamically manages the membership of the Account Store's groups, adding and removing users to and from groups based upon policy-based assignment rules.

    • Membership Schedule - This is the time span that occurs before EmpowerID runs the Group Membership Reconciliation Job. The default value is 10 minutes. You can change this at any time by clicking the Edit button.

    • Enable this Functionality - Enables and disables group membership reconciliation on the Account Store.

Before configuring EmpowerID to manage the account store, you should determine whether or not you want EmpowerID to provision Person objects from the user records it discovers in the account store. If so, then you should be able to answer the following questions before turning on inventory.
  1. When do you want EmpowerID to provision Person objects for those user accounts? At inventory or at a later point in time?
  2. If inventory provisioning is desired, in what Business Role and Location should those Person objects be placed?
  3. How many user accounts can one Person have in the account store?
  4. If people can have more that one user account in the account store, do you want EmpowerID to attempt to automatically join any user accounts meeting the conditions of your Join rules to an existing Person during inventory?

For a greater discussion of these points within the context of connecting EmpowerID to an account store, see Connecting EmpowerID to Active Directory.

  1. From the General pane of the Account Store Details screen, enable each desired feature by toggling the icon to the right of each feature from a red sphere to a green check box. For example, if you want EmpowerID to provision an EmpowerID Person for each Oracle user, toggle the red sphere to the right of Allow Person Provisioning to a green check box.

  2. In the Inventory pane of the Account Store Details screen for the account store, toggle the icon to the right of the Allow Automatic Person Provision On Inventory setting from a red sphere to a green check box if you enabled Allow Person Provisioning in the General pane and you want EmpowerID to automatically create a linked EmpowerID Person object for each new, unique Oracle user discovered during the inventory process.

  3. If you are allowing automatic person provision on inventory, click the Edit button to the right of Business Role for New Inventory Provision and select an appropriate Business Role for each new Person provisioned during inventory.

  4. Click OK to close the Business Role Selector.
  5. If you are allowing automatic person provision on inventory, click the Edit button to the right of Location For New Inventory Provision and select an appropriate Location for each Person EmpowerID provisions during inventory.

  6. Click OK to close the Location Selector.
  7. To begin inventory, click the red sphere to the left of Enable Inventory so that the red sphere becomes a green check box.

  8. After several minutes, refresh the Account Store data by pressing the Refresh Data button located a the top of the Account Store Details screen. You should see that EmpowerID has inventoried the Oracle user accounts and provisioned the requisite number of EmpowerID Persons for those accounts (if you selected the provisioning options discussed above).