In discussions with our customers and prospects, almost all of them share common road-blocks that prevent many organizations from fully embracing a cloud identity management/SSO solution. Here we will address 5 of the more common road-blocks and how Optimal IdM has helped clients meet and exceed their security, regulatory, and enterprise architecture needs.
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- 1. Synchronization of identities: Most (if not all), cloud identity vendors require you to synchronize your on-premise identities into that vendors’ cloud. This, in itself, seems harmless, but many clients have personally identifiable information (PII) data in place and government or regulatory restrictions that prohibits this type of architecture. To alleviate this issue, The OptimalCloud does not require the syncing of accounts to the cloud. The OptimalCloud includes a built-in LDAP Virtual Directory which proxies a simple VPN connection from our private cloud into where your identities already exists. This provides a more secure architecture, because it completely eliminates the need for copying and recopying data off premises. We simply don’t require any identity synchronization outside of your current infrastructure!
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- 2. Shared Environments: Most (if not all), cloud identity solutions and vendors only offer shared environments. So, not only is all your data coexisting with some other organization’s data, one breach, DoS attack, unpatched server, etc. can quickly put all customers in that shared environment at risk. OptimalCloud customers enjoy private dedicated servers in geographical data-centers of their choice. We are cloud vendor independent, so you are never forced to use AWS, Microsoft Azure, or any other cloud vendor. We integrate securely with all of them. Any and all data is completely isolated and located exactly where our clients choose. Your identity information and data need not exist outside of your geo-restricted, government regulated data-privacy restrictions/regulations.
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- 3. Extensibility: Because most cloud identity vendors only offer shared environments, it’s nearly impossible to truly find an extensible platform. You’ll be restricted to whatever their shared environment software already does and tied to their pre-defined business rules. The OptimalCloud has no such restrictions, because with a single-tenant environment, you don’t share cloud environments with other customers. The OptimalCloud includes the ability to configure nearly every aspect of the solution to meet all of your unique business and security requirements.
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- 4. Cost and Budgeting: Mid-size to large organizations are often hit with extremely expensive per/user, per/month costs. The typical SSO system will cost you anywhere from $2 to over $10 per user per month! For an organization of 50,000 employees, that’s an annual cost of $1.2M to $6M a year and that often times does not even include all of the additional one-offs and add-ins—e.g. Two-Factor authentication (2FA)! This makes the cost extremely prohibitive to even consider a cloud option. The OptimalCloud has unique pricing model that includes many fixed-price options where you pay based on the data-centers and number of servers required to meet your organization’s needs. This can reduce the overall cost of the solution by as much as 90%!
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- 5. Onsite Identity Expertise: Even in the largest global organizations, the identity infrastructure is architected, maintained and supported by a select few individuals. Any one of these individuals leaving the organization can put that infrastructure at great risk. One main benefit to moving to a cloud identity solution is to leverage your cloud provider’s expertise and allow them to extend your organization’s identity and access management architecture, maintenance and staff without having to go out and hire additional headcount. We provide a fully managed service solution and eliminate the need for additional internal identity expertise to run other vendor’s specialized software solution. Now, our customers’ can utilize their in-house identity experts to work on higher priority, more strategic projects and shift the risk of architecture, maintenance and support to Optimal IdM.
All of this is possible because we’ve architected products that are globally deployed, analyst recognized, and utilized in some of the most secure places on earth.
