Before you begin the planning phase of the Identity Manager deployment, you must be familiar with the Identity Manager products so you can create a useful plan. Setting up a development environment where you can test, analyze, and develop your Identity Manager solution allows you to learn about each component of Identity Manager and find unforeseen issues and complications that can arise.
For example, when you synchronize information between different systems, the information is presented differently for each system. Changing the data to synchronize between these two systems, allows you to see if this change affects other systems that use this same information.
The other major reason to set up a development environment is to make sure your solutions work, without affecting live data. Identity Manager manipulates data, which includes deleting data. Having the test environment allows you to make changes without any loss to the data in your production environment.
You should set up a development environment for each deployment of Identity Manager. Each deployment is different. There are different systems, business policies, and procedures that need to be included in the Identity Manager solution. The development environment allows you to create the solution that is best for each situation.
The most important tool to use when you are developing your Identity Manager solution is Designer. It allows you to capture all of the information about your environment and then use that information to create an Identity Manager solution that fits your needs. Use Designer during all aspects of the planning to capture all of the information. Designer makes it much easier to create a project plan that includes the business information as well as the technical information. For more information about Designer, see Designer 3.5 for Identity Manager 3.6 Administration Guide.
To set up your development environment, use the information in Section 4.0, Basic Identity Manager System Checklist. It is an installation checklist of all of the Identity Manager components. Use this to make sure you have installed and configured all components for Identity Manager that you can use to develop a project plan. Use the information in Section 3.0, Technical Guidelines as you set up your development environment, so you can learn about the technical considerations as you install and configure each component of Identity Manager.
After your development environment is created, the next step is to create the project plan to implement the Identity Manager solution. Use the information in Section 2.0, Creating a Project Plan to create the project plan.