Top 5 Questions to Evaluate An Identity and Access Management Solution Provider

INTRODUCTION

In today’s digital world, Information is the most important asset for a business, therefore businesses must have a framework or system in place to assist in managing their digital assets. Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions administer and assist businesses in managing and accessing important company’s information. IAM Solutions helps companies to define, authenticate and authorize identity, roles, access privileges for company resources like the user, system, or process. IAM ensures that businesses have complete control over their information assets, boosts security, and ensures compliance.

So, evaluate the Identity and Access Management solution provider by asking these questions to make an informed decision about the best fit for your organization.

1. SHOULD WE CHOOSE AN ON-PREMISE, CLOUD-BASED, OR HYBRID IAM SOLUTION?

Many companies face a challenge when it comes to choosing the right IAM solutions provider. They must decide whether to go with an on-premise cloud-based or hybrid service. The pros of choosing each solution must be weighted up for a decision.

• On-Premise IAM Solutions

On-premise solutions are ideally suited for large enterprises and it is the best solution for a company that has resources to manage the on-premise solution and its integration. It still becomes relevant and has importance when there is a regulatory or legal requirement to do so, which is the situation in the majority of nations today. With on-premise solutions, an organization gains complete control over its system.

• Cloud-based IAM Solutions

Cloud-based IAM solution, on the other hand,  offers enterprises the ability to quickly implement the solution and benefits the businesses as they save a lot of money on infrastructure and resources, provide easy scalability, and a greater degree of flexibility. The whole IAM may be utilized as plug-and-play software.

• Hybrid IAM Solutions

The hybrid solution is both on-premise and cloud-based implementation of IAM solution with sensitive data hosting provided on-premise and less critical workloads hosting provided on cloud-based solutions.

As a result, companies must weigh up and decide which solution suits them the best depending on their specific requirements, examining the security and usability requirements of employees and users. 

2. POINT SOLUTIONS OR A FULL PLATFORM, WHY?

Point solutions provide businesses with a solution to their current IAM requirements that will provide organizations with the basic benefits of IAM solutions which can be integrated internally with their existing systems for a particular use case.

A fully-integrated platform, on the other hand, provides several benefits which include centralized control over all of the digital assets, meeting current demands, and helping in future planning. It is safe, scalable, adaptable, and simple to manage. 

Many businesses make the fundamental error of selecting solutions that fulfill their current requirements while failing to consider the wider picture. However, if you are thinking about the future, then you need a solution that can account for flexibility and scalability. Choosing an IAM solution might be difficult, but by evaluating these questions, you will begin to grasp the needs for an IAM solution in a clear manner.

3. APPLICATIONS THAT WE NEED FOR IDENTITY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS TO WORK?

While life has become simpler for businesses with cloud-based SaaS (Software As A Service) solutions, they have greatly enabled complicated modern IAM solutions. IAM necessitates that companies develop a library of all the apps that must be run within the business and evaluate a strategy for storing and managing all the applications that employees will use and apps that must be tracked with . The majority of IAM solutions on the market can interface with hundreds of different pieces of software and apps.

4. DOES THE SOLUTION SUPPORT VARIOUS AUTHENTICATION METHODS?

Today’s enterprises will need strong authentication methods to increase the range of high-value transactions and business use cases. There are different IAM solutions and no two IAM solutions are the same with each provider having a stance of their own. Few IAM solutions can provide nearly 30 different multi-factor authentications (MFA) methods which range from mobile-push notifications to fingerprint and facial recognition biometric options. The MFA services can be accessed via APIs, SDKs, or both, and MFA policy controls allow businesses to balance strong security with user experience. Using such an IAM solution allows businesses a flexible approach that adapts different authentication methods dependent on user, group, or application.

5. WHAT BUSINESS TRENDS IMPACT OUR NEEDS TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE?

In the last several years, the industry has expanded in several aspects. The evaluation of an IAM solution provider should envisage what your company’s requirements from an identity solution will be in future years. The IAM solution should serve the current needs of the business while being competent for the future as well.  The IAM solution should be scalable, flexible, cost-effective, and yield corporate development. 

Businesses must consider cloud IAM solutions as a factor when planning for migration. Cloud IAM solutions have updated the control parameters for information access, allowing enterprises to provide regulatory access to their employees, customers, vendors, suppliers, and others.

This is unlikely to change in the future. However, the most important component and trend in the next five years will be: 

• Organizations will have to invest more budget and resources on identity and access governance, as well as tools and technology that assist in doing so.
• IaaS (Identity As A Service) is one of the new technological fields that continues to be the most investigated and embraced identity domain in the creation of IAM solutions.
• Single Sign-On (SSO) will continue to dominate the industry as the preferred choice for a session and user authentication service.
• Organizations will continue to confront difficulties in managing privileged access.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The IAM solution you choose will be a vital aspect for your business for many years to come. As a result, enterprises must analyze each point, threat and vulnerability management, understand their needs, and choose a solution that meets those criteria and help achieve the business goals. The Identity Management Solution should address both the current and future demands of the enterprise. We at Terralogic provide an IAM solution that is flexible to meet security and usability criteria for diverse populations of identities — workforce and customer. We try to understand the company and the risk related before recommending a solution.