Connector Guides › Connectors Guide › Endpoints, Connectors, and the Connector Server › Audience

Audience

This guide is for administrators of CA IAM CS and CCS, who are responsible for the following tasks:

• Installing and configuring CA IAM Connector Server (CA IAM CS)
• Connecting to endpoint systems using CA IAM CS

Endpoints

An endpoint is a specific installation of a platform or application which has identity and role data on it.

An endpoint can include the following systems:

• An operating system (such as Windows)
• A security product that protects an operating system (such as CA Top Secret and CA ACF2)
• An authentication server that creates, supplies, and manages user credentials (such as CA Arcot)
• A business application (such as SAP, Oracle Applications, and PeopleSoft)
• A cloud application (such as SalesForce and Google Apps)

For the full list of endpoints that you can connect to with CA IAM CS, see the Platform Support Matrix.

Connectors

A connector is the software that enables communication between CA IAM CS and an endpoint system.

For each endpoint that you want to manage, you must have a connector. Connectors are responsible for representing each of the managed objects in your endpoint in a consistent manner. Connectors translate add, modify, delete, rename, and search LDAP operations on those objects into corresponding actions against the endpoint system.

A connector acts as a gateway to a native endpoint type system technology. For example, to manage computers running Active Directory Services (ADS) install the ADS connector on a connector server.

CA IAM CS comes with many connectors. In addition, you can generate a dynamic connector using Connector Xpress, and you can develop a custom static connector in Java.

Users use Connector Xpress to generate and maintain the XML metadata for JDBC and JNDI dynamic connectors. Developers can also maintain data for other connectors manually, or adjust metadata for released connectors (for instance adding site-specific mappings for custom attributes).

What Connectors Can Do

Each connector can perform the following operations on managed objects on the endpoint:

• Add
• Modify—Changes the value of attributes, including modifying associations between them (for example, changing which accounts belong to a group).
• Delete
• Rename
• Search—Queries the values of the attributes that are stored for an endpoint system or the managed objects that it contains.

For most endpoint types, all of these operations can be performed on accounts. These operations can also be performed on other managed objects if the endpoint permits it.

Some consuming applications can perform all of these operations. Other consuming applications perform only some of these operations.

Example: What CA IdentityMinder can do on an endpoint

CA IdentityMinder manages identities on endpoints. It adds, modifies, deletes, and renames users, groups, and accounts.

Example: What CA GovernanceMinder can do on an endpoint

CA GovernanceMinder monitors roles and permissions on endpoints. It searches for users, groups, roles, and permissions. It can also remove roles from a user. However CA GovernanceMinder cannot create or delete user accounts.

Types of Connector

CA IAM CS has two types of connectors:

Java Connectors

CA Technologies creates new connectors in Java, and CA IAM Connector Server (CA IAM CS) serves these connectors.

If you create a connector, use Java.

C++ Connectors

Previously, CA Technologies created connectors in C++. These connectors still work well, and C++ Connector Server (CCS) serves these connectors. Usually, CCS is installed with and managed by CA IAM CS.

Note: You cannot use both CA IAM CS and CCS to manage the same endpoint type.

In addition, some consuming applications have their own connectors. CA IdentityMinder has some plugin connectors, and CA GovernanceMinder has some import connectors.

Where to Find Documentation for Connectors

CA Technologies documents how to set up and use each connector, and also how to fill in the relevant fields in endpoint-specific screens.

Connectors Guide and online help

Until recently, each endpoint type was documented with a section in the CA IdentityMinder Connectors Guide and a section in the online help for CA IdentityMinder User Console. The Connectors Guide is available in the product bookshelf, and the online help comes with the User Console.

Endpoint Guide and attribute list

An Endpoint Guide contains everything you need to know about setting up a connection to a particular endpoint type. An attribute list is an HTML page that describes every setting that is required for configuring a connector.

The Endpoint Guides and attribute lists are available on the Connector Download page. To access this page, log in with your CA Support credentials.

The documentation for any new connectors appears on this download page when the connector is released. A connector can be released at any time between releases of other products.

You can read the documentation, and then download the new connector from CA Support and use it with your consuming application. The new connector causes new pages to appear in some applications, including the CA IdentityMinder User Console. However, any Help links for these new pages will not work until the connector is included in the next release of your consuming application.

Connector Servers

Client applications can use a connector server to get this data from the endpoints. Some client applications also manage some data on the endpoint. A connector server uses a connector to manage each endpoint.

• CA IAM CS—A Java connector server which can manage the following things:
  • All of the Java connectors
  • Any dynamic connectors that were created with Connector Xpress
  • C++ Connector Server (CCS) and its connectors, if CCS is present
• CCS—A C++ connector server which manages all of the C++ connectors.

  When you install CA IAM CS, you have the option to install CCS in a managed mode. If you do this, CA IAM CS manages CCS and the C++ connectors that it manages.

  If you prefer to install CCS on its own, it manages the C++ connectors directly.

Example: Two kinds of connectors

In this example, CA IAM CS serves the connectors for PeopleSoft and SalesForce. CCS serves the connectors for Active Directory and DB2.