Oracle had a very low-profile presence at Digital ID World, but not because it had nothing to talk about. Instead, it kept its press releases and official announcements for last week's Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, where identity was front and center. (Compare Identity Management products)

The standout, to my mind, was the release of Oracle Entitlements Server. This technology (acquired when Oracle picked up BEA and formerly called BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Security) “externalizes” and centralizes fine-grained authorization policies for enterprise applications and Web services. “Externalizes” means, in this context, that security and regulatory policies – which are embedded in the code for most applications, making it difficult to change, and nearly impossible to monitor and audit – are now handled centrally and coordinated with other identity tasks. The product page can help you discover all the details.

Also announced was a new release of the Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance Applications Suite, which includes new versions of products across the Oracle GRC portfolio, including Oracle Application Access Controls Governor, Oracle Fusion GRC Intelligence, and Oracle GRC Manager. These aim to integrate the management of diverse compliance and risk processes with preventative automated controls to help reduce cost and complexity. More details at the GRC product page.

The company also launched the new Oracle Identity Assurance Partner Alliance. Oracle and the other members of the alliance plan to deliver solutions that pre-integrate Oracle’s Identity Management Suite with partner technologies to offer capabilities such as identity proofing, Internet geolocation, multi-factor authentication, out-of-band authentication, endpoint security and secure remote access. Among the initial members of the alliance are ActivIdentity, Idology, Juniper Networks, Quova, StrikeForce Technologies and Vasco.

There were a ton of other announcements that leverage Oracle’s identity products (such as Oracle Business Approvals for iPhone) so be sure to check out the entire Oracle Identity Management product line.

Event update: In light of the recent merger of Quest and NetPro, there were questions about the continued viability of The Experts Conference (formerly the Directory Experts Conference). I’ve been reassured that the show will go on – you can even register now for next year’s events.

Also ready for registration is the Identity Management & GRC Conference – in Istanbul, Turkey. Identity truly is global. I’ll be in Istanbul (not Constantinople!) in February, and you can be too.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.