Upgrading To A Cloud-Based IAM Solution That Addresses Active Directory
About The Company
As a leading wholesale food distribution cooperative serving more than 160 grocery stores in the Pacific Northwest United States, its member-owner stores operate under a variety of banner names. In addition to grocery stores, the company supplies 1,500-plus restaurants, hotels, and convenience stores; it also offers such services as merchandising, store development consulting, and technology purchasing.
Challenges
The IT infrastructure at the company was ready for an upgrade as many of their legacy systems were near end of life and needed to be updated or replaced. This included adding cloud-based identity management solutions and a new way to address active directory. In short, the company was looking for an affordable, easy to use IAM solution that offered scalability and optional managed services if their staff became overwhelmed.
The company had been using identity management vendor Okta, but pricing was an issue as was the ability to address some federation issues.
A member of the company’s staff had worked with Optimal IdM at a previous employer and knew Optimal IdM could provide them a flexible offering that could adapt to their needs.
Solution
The company went with the OptimalCloud™ solution and the Optimal Virtual Identity Server (VIS) from Optimal IdM. The solution included self-registration, workflow approval, and multi-level delegated administration with relationship managers and delegated administrators.
It was paramount for the company that the OptimalCloud offered administrators a complete user management system that included a robust delegated administrative identity management system.
With the OptimalCloud, the IT team did not have to worry about setting up or rolling out applications. In essence, it reduced deployment barrier. The OptimalCloud also gave the company’s IT team the power to set credentials and check-ins at the frequency that’s best for them. Options that focus on the background allow the team to rollout a new protection paradigm without employees noticing much of a change. By building user requests into their workflow, information is quickly pushed to administrators for approval or denial. The delegated administration model maintains updates to authentication lists, giving the company a granular look at current security without the need for a multi-step sign-on each time, even if it is a multi-factor identification protocol.
The OptimalCloud was selected by the company for these additional reasons:
• Private, Secure and Dedicated Cloud – The company looked at other vendors, but ultimately did not want a publicly shared cloud. Security, auditing and controls were also very important features.
• Self registration – Self-registration allows users to create their own login and password. A user who self registers is immediately and automatically granted access and a new user account is created in the client’s directory.
• Complete Delegated Administration and Workflow Capabilities –The OptimalCloud offers complete identity management with delegated administration, workflow capabilities, and delegate administrative abilities to verify users and run identity management reports.
• Proven and Trusted Reliability – After using the Optimal IdM Virtual Identity Server (VIS) for many years, the company already knew that Optimal IdM was a reliable partner that values customers and stands behind its products and services. With a customizable solution, care and attention to detail, it was an easy decision to move forward with The OptimalCloud.
Results
Optimal IdM now manages the company’s external identities with the OptimalCloud. This IDaaS model allows the company IT staff to focus on priority goals and objectives and provides flexibility to grow in new directions. The OptimalCloud has also brought the company the following benefits:
• Affordability – Unlike other vendors who use a pricing model based around a per user, per month charge, The OptimalCloud, uses an affordable flat monthly fee.
• Scalability – The OptimalCloud solution future-proofs the company by adapting to their needs while enabling them to scale quickly.
• Efficiency – The implementation of the OptimalCloud was quick and easy and has saved the client money and countless hours on training, development and management.
• Productivity – With the Optimal development portal, the client receives sample code, preconfigured to integrate with their environment, which allows developers to test different apps, protocols and languages before rolling them out.
• Compliance – The OptimalCloud provides extensive cloud reporting using a dedicated database, which is essential for compliance regulations. The reporting tool offers granular data including who logged in, what claims they used, number of assertions and even how they authenticated.
