SolarWinds ARM / 8man alternative: Why a next-gen upgrade to the FirstWare IDM-Portal is a smart move right now

The market for Access Rights Management (ARM) and Identity Management faces major challenges. Many IT managers who relied on traditional solutions years ago to manage their hybrid infrastructures and permissions are now looking with concern at their budgets and roadmaps.

The biggest problem: The tools do not address hybrid challenges and can only partially map the RAP (Request-Approval-Provisioning) access management process in a hybrid environment. New features, such as SharePoint libraries, require additional tools or licenses.

What once began as a reliable partnership now feels like a dead end for many companies: unexpected license adjustments, drastic price increases for maintenance contracts, and the feeling that software development has stagnated are causing unrest in IT departments.

We’ll show you a different way

When access rights management software creates more work than it saves

In recent conversations with IT managers and administrators, we’ve increasingly heard about three key issues when it comes to traditional ARM tools (such as SolarWinds Access Rights Manager, formerly 8man):

• Budgets are skyrocketing, while value is stagnating: When it comes time to renew your contract, you suddenly face the threat of drastic price hikes or being forced into more expensive subscription plans. The worst part is that you end up paying significantly more money without getting any new features that make your daily life easier.

• Technological stagnation instead of future-proofing: When updates are not released, critical versions are discontinued, or performance suffers in large Active Directory environments, the tool itself becomes a security risk.

• You can see the problem, but you can’t solve it: While traditional tools show who has which permissions, the actual work—creating, modifying, and deleting users properly—still falls to the IT department.

The takeaway is that the IT infrastructure must remain flexible. If a tool creates more administrative headaches than it relieves, it’s time to explore alternatives.

The alternative: FirstWare IDM-Portal

There is another way. The FirstWare IDM-Portal (IDM-Portal) takes a fundamentally different approach than traditional, rigid ARM systems. We see ourselves not only as a cloud service and software provider, but as a long-term partner for your Identity Governance & Administration.

1. Fair and transparent licensing model

We believe in predictability. The FirstWare IDM-Portal offers a fair, transparent licensing model with no “unpleasant surprises” at the next renewal. Your budget remains predictable, allowing you to focus on your IT projects instead of renegotiating budgets.

2. Hybrid readiness and continuous development

Identity and access management is not static. We continue to develop the IDM-Portal in an agile, future-oriented manner, closely incorporating customer feedback.

We know that modern companies and organizations today work with complex, hybrid infrastructures. With the FirstWare IDM-Portal, you secure a real technological advantage here:

• Seamless hybrid integration: Our portal bridges the gap between your on-premises environment and the cloud. Whether you use on-premises servers or the cloud, you can manage identities centrally in one place.

• Secure management of cloud resources: Manage SharePoint objects, cloud licenses, Teams structures, and file shares without any disruption and without having to switch back and forth between different admin centers.

• Professional guest management: Securely provisioning and authorizing external employees, partners, or guests in cloud environments is an administrative nightmare for many IT departments. The IDM-Portal automates and streamlines these processes, ensuring that compliance requirements are fully met – even for external users.

3. From a simple “audit” to true “Identity Governance & Administration”

Traditional ARM tools often only show you where the problem lies (who has which rights?). The IDM-Portal goes one crucial step further: It enables efficient, role-based user lifecycle management, as well as role-based access management for resources.

Via an intuitive web interface, even non-IT departments (such as HR or team leaders) can create and manage users and permissions—error-free, automated, and fully audit-proof.

Let’s discuss your requirements

The comparison at a glance

Topics	Traditional ARM tools	FirstWare IDM-Portal
Price trends	Frequent sudden increases & mandatory licensing	Fair, transparent, and predictable over the long term
Focus	Pure access control analysis (audit)	Comprehensive Identity & Access Management + Automation
Development	Frequently discontinued versions / Stagnation	Regular updates & modern web interface
Usability	Mostly intended for highly specialized administrators	Role-based access (including for HR and business units)

What the IDM-Portal does for you

Here is a detailed overview of the tasks the IDM-Portal takes over from the ARM tool and how it optimizes the processes:

1. Holistic lifecycle management & automated provisioning

• What ARM does: Provides templates for administrators to create new users in Active Directory. However, the IT department usually handles this task, as the interface is too complex for regular employees.

• How the IDM-Portal helps in practice: The portal automates the entire user lifecycle, from onboarding through department transfers to offboarding (Joiner-Mover-Leaver). It can be directly integrated with upstream systems such as HR software or ERP systems. As soon as a record is created or modified there, the IDM-Portal automatically creates or updates the user account, the Microsoft 365 mailbox, the home folder, and all basic standard permissions in the background.

• The advantage: The IT department no longer needs to intervene manually at all for standard processes. Sources of error caused by typos or forgotten deprovisioning when an employee leaves are completely eliminated.

2. Delegation to business units (Data governance)

• What ARM does: The so-called “Data Owner Dashboard.” A department head can use a web interface to decide who gets access to their department’s folders.

• How the IDM-Portal helps in practice: The IDM-Portal implements this principle through its role-based access control (RBAC). A department head logs into the portal and sees only their employees and resources. With just two clicks, they can assign a new role (e.g., “Project Purchasing”) to a team member. The portal manages group memberships in the background.

• The advantage: No need to submit a ticket to IT. Responsibility lies where the knowledge is—in the business department. The IDM-Portal implements this with a modern visual design that is intuitive for the end user.

3. Automated group management

• What ARM does: Displays nested groups and helps administrators manually add or remove users from groups.

• How the IDM-Portal specifically helps: The IDM-Portal is not an AD group management tool, but an access management tool that can map the RAP process in a hybrid environment. Group management is just one aspect that the IDM-Portal handles, regardless of whether the groups are AD or Entra groups.

  The IDM-Portal ensures that user attributes (e.g., Department = “HR MUC”, Location = “Munich”) are maintained with absolute precision. In the background, our integrated automation logic reads these attributes and fully automatically places the employee in the correct groups (and thus in the correct file server folders, the correct SharePoint group, or cloud licenses). If the department changes, the permissions change immediately and automatically.

• The advantage: While ARM customers have to laboriously check and correct permissions, the IDM-Portal’s automation prevents incorrect permissions from arising in the first place.

Conclusion: Time for a seamless transition

A switch brings many benefits. If you are unhappy with your current ARM solution, we offer a technology-agnostic and modern IGA solution that keeps permissions securely and automatically under control.

Let’s work together to see how we can automate your Identity & Access Management maintenance and restore a healthy balance to your costs.

Note: SolarWinds, Access Rights Manager, and 8man are registered trademarks of their respective owners. They are mentioned solely for reference purposes to describe product compatibility and market alternatives.

Get in touch with us

More about FirstWare IDM-Portal

The FirstWare IDM-Portal from FirstAttribute is a user-friendly IAM solution for the automated provisioning and lifecycle management of all identities and groups in complex, hybrid IT environments.

Through targeted delegation and role-based access management, it enables business departments to independently maintain identity data and permissions—supplemented by powerful Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) features such as audit logs, recertification, and compliance reporting.