A server configured with an LDAP directory (eDirectory 8.7 or later, Sun ONE, or Active Directory) that contains your system users. The Identity Server uses the LDAP directory to authenticate users to the system.

Web servers with content or applications that need protection.

Clients with an Internet browser.

An L4 switch if you are going to configure load balancing. This can be hardware or software (for example, a Linux machine running Linux Virtual Services).

Static IP addresses for each machine used for an Access Manager component. If the IP address of the machine changes, the Access Manager component or components on that machine cannot start.

Domain name server, which resolves DNS names to IP addresses and which has reverse lookups enabled.

Access Manager devices know each other by their IP addresses, and some requests require them to match an IP address with the device's DNS name. Without reverse lookups enabled, these requests fail. In particular, Identity Servers perform reverse lookups to their user stores. If reverse lookups are not available, host table entries can be used.

Network time protocol server, which provides accurate time to the machines on your network. Time must be synchronized within one minute among the components, or the security features of the product disrupt the communication processes. You can install your own or use a publicly available server such as pool.ntp.org.

Novell Access Manager does not work in a NAT (Network Address Translation) environment unless all the Access Manager devices (Administration Console, Identity Server, Access Gateway, SSL VPN server, and J2EE Agents) are on the same side of the NAT. Clients can be on the other side.

If you are using a load balancer to communicate with the Identity Servers and the Access Gateways, the load balancer can enable NAT to make sure that all requests continue to go back through the load balancer and not directly between the devices.