Startup debuts with cloud-based open-source identity and access management software

Originally founded in Oslo, Norway, in 2009 and now with U.S. headquarters in San Francisco, ForgeRock's founders CEO Lasse Andresen and Hermann Svoren, vice president of sales, have a backgrounds steeped in what was Sun Microsystems' open-source IAM. In fact, many in the engineering and support teams at ForgeRock have a similar background, says Daniel Raskin, vice president of marketing, who says he was formerly chief identity strategist at Sun. But he, like several others at Sun, left after Oracle's acquisition of Sun in order to strike out on their own. "Oracle had a different strategy and they were not going to continue down the road of open-source identity," says Raskin.

Ernst & Young's IT security survey shows struggle to control cloud computing, social media and mobile risks

Now backed with $7 million in funding landed in March from Accel Partners -- as well as an undisclosed sum from Sun co-founder Scott McNealy -- ForgeRock is taking the open-source IAM legacy from the Sun era and striving to transition it into a cloud environment.

Today, says Raskin, the challenge for the enterprise is that centralized identity-based provisioning and access management needs to be extended beyond traditional corporate assets to user mobile devices, social networks and cloud services, such as Salesforce.com.

ForgeRock's Open Identity Stack, available now, is intended to do that. This Java-based product, which Raskin says should end up costing a few dollars per year per user, follows a number of other software products from ForgeRock that essentially represent further development of Sun's open-source access management, identity management and directory services components.