The recent blog about how ACDI (Audit, Compliance & Data Intelligence) is coming to OpenText Access Manager made me want to shout from the roof how important this feature is for our OpenText Identity Manager customers. As Christian said in his blog…ACDI is “powerful tool now takes the reins for all reporting and monitoring needs.”

With that, let’s focus on OpenText Identity Manager. This feature is available in the most recent versions. So, if you are on an older version, here is a gentle nudge to upgrade to the latest. (Check out the OpenText™ Identity Manager version chart.)

5 Reasons to consider an upgrade

Upgrading an identity management platform is never just a routine exercise — it’s a strategic enabler. Here are key motivations:

• Stronger security posture: Newer releases bring updated cryptographic libraries, patched CVEs, and support for modern TLS/SSL standards.
• Better observability & governance: Tools like ACDI, now more deeply integrated. They provide built-in analytics, audit trails, and dashboards reducing dependence on external or homegrown tooling.
• Feature velocity and usability: Upgrades deliver enhancements to installers, consoles, workflows, and user experience. These improve productivity and lower operational friction.
• Support and lifecycle alignment: Staying current keeps you in the vendor’s active maintenance and support window. This delivers continued access to fixes, patches, and expert assistance.
• Reduced future upgrade risk: By keeping your deployment relatively close to the cutting edge, you avoid large “jump” upgrades later that might introduce more migration pain.

One of the most compelling reasons in recent releases is the maturation of ACDI (Audit, Compliance & Data Intelligence) as a first-class module in IDM. It makes observability, auditability, and compliance more of a baked-in capability than a bolt-on.

Spotlight on ACDI (Audit, Compliance & Data Intelligence)

ACDI is the analytics, audit, and monitoring module embedded into modern OpenText Identity Manager (NetIQ) releases. Its value lies in giving identity teams a unified view into system health, change events, historical snapshots, and compliance workflows. And all of this happens from within the IDM ecosystem.

Key ACDI capabilities

• Event capture & logging: ACDI can monitor identity events (attribute changes, driver syncs, workflow steps) across IDM components.
• Historical snapshots / temporal data views: You can compare vault state over time, identify trends, and investigate past deviations.
• Dashboards and reports: Prebuilt dashboards for system health, driver performance, errors, and audit metrics help administrators detect anomalies.
• Drill-down forensic capabilities: From a high-level report you can navigate into specific changes, which user made them, when, and what the consequences were.
• Compliance & audit readiness: ACDI’s built-in logs and reporting help satisfy audit regimes (SOX, GDPR, internal policies) without stitching together external log aggregators.

ACDI resides inside IDM and uses its drivers and event feeds. So, it reduces latency, architectural complexity, and the need for custom logging reflections.

When you upgrade to versions that support or require enhanced ACDI integration (e.g. 24.4+), you gain immediate access to better observability and governance.

Innovation in version 24.4 (f.k.a. 4.10)

Major Enhancements & Features (see full notes here: OpenText Identity Manager CE 24.4 (v4.10) Release Notes):

1. Cryptography & TLS enhancements
   • Ships with OpenSSL 3.0.15 and support for TLS 1.3 in intra-component communication.
   • For upgrades from earlier versions (4.7.5, 4.8, 4.9), TLS 1.2 is still permitted unless TLS 1.3 is explicitly enabled.
2. Platform / OS support updates
   • Adds official support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.4.
3. Installer & configuration improvements
   • The installer now prompts for the master keystore password during setup.
   • Identity Console setup (for UI components) gets more intelligent defaults.
   • The SAP HANA driver is packaged within the deliverables, simplifying deployment.
4. Identity Applications / UX enhancements
   • The new Task History view lets users see their past tasks (requests, approvals, etc.), and authorized admins can see others’ history.

Overall, 24.4 is a robust base that modernizes the cryptographic stack, strengthens installation flows, and ushers in incremental user experience improvements.

25.2 (4.10.1) continues the innovation

New & Enhanced Capabilities (see full notes here: OpenText Identity Manager CE 25.2 (v4.10.1) What’s New):

• Continuity & cumulative updates
  25.2 furthers the evolution of IDM by building on prior fixes, tightening edge cases, and preserving backward compatibility where possible.
• Analyzer compatibility update
  If you already have Analyzer deployed, it must be upgraded to version 4.8.5 to maintain compatibility with IDM 25.2.

Given that 25.2 doesn’t reinvent the wheel but tightens and stabilizes, the biggest leap is from earlier legacy versions up into 24.4 (for TLS, usability, and base modernization). From there, moving to 25.2 is lower risk but still beneficial for stability and cumulative fixes.

Upgrade strategy & tips (with ACDI in mind)

1. Audit your current environment
   Map all connectors, custom drivers, workflows, external integrations, and certificate/keystore usage.
2. Check versions of related components
   Make sure your Designer, Analyzer, Identity Console, etc., are all updated to versions compatible with target IDM. (E.g. Analyzer must move to 4.8.5 for 25.2.)
3. Stage environment & smoke test
   Deploy 24.4 in a test environment first, validate all connectors, workflows, event flows, and certificate changes (TLS). Then later upgrade that environment to 25.2 and test again.
4. Deploy ACDI early
   Once you're on 24.4, enable ACDI and begin collecting event data so that when you arrive at 25.2 you have historical context and visibility.
5. Backup & rollback planning
   Always snapshot databases, keystores, identity vaults, and configuration before each upgrade stage.
6. Monitor via ACDI dashboards
   Use ACDI to track component health, driver latency/failures, resource consumption, and anomalous event activity.
7. Phased rollout
   Start with lower-risk systems or less critical connectors, then expand to the full production footprint after validation.
8. Engage vendor documentation and support
   Read the full release notes (beyond the “What’s New” or summary pages), watch for known issues, hotfixes, or patches that are only available via support.

Conclusion

Upgrading to IDM 24.4 (v4.10), and subsequently to 25.2 (4.10.1), is a strategic move to future-proof your identity infrastructure. The 24.4 baseline brings modern cryptography, smarter installers, and improved user workflows, while 25.2 continues the evolutionary polishing, stabilization, and compatibility hardening. Most importantly, ACDI’s closer integration in these releases turns identity audit, compliance, and observability from a burdensome add-on into a native capability — helping your team detect issues faster, prepare for audits, and manage your IDM deployment proactively.

Learn more about OpenText Identity Manager.

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