A significant issue for modern organizations is the management of internal user identities. These identities are important for tasks such as providing access to the internal network and applications, third-party and web-based applications, and the server infrastructure whether hosted on-premise or in the cloud. That’s all in addition to a user’s laptop or desktop. A significant driver for the complexity with identity management is the move to cloud infrastructure.
Specifically, the problems that IT admins need to solve with their user directory structure include:
Device Support
No longer is a Microsoft Windows desktop the standard device for an employee. In today’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture, every employee has a personal laptop, tablet, or mobile device — and they want each one to connect to their corporate identity. Those machines are running macOS and Linux with increased frequency.
Synchronization of User Identities Across Services
Users no longer accept that they need different logins for each of their corporate services. IT admins need to figure out a way for their users to leverage internal or third-party corporate identities across services. But with such a wide range of various “types” of services, protocols, and security challenges, that’s no easy feat.
Security
The number one IT security risk to an organization is the compromise of one of their employee’s credentials, and the scope of that risk has never been greater. IT admins need to ensure that employees have immediate access to cloud applications, internal services, and cloud-based server infrastructure while keeping hackers out. How do you ensure that all of that is secure, and have the ability to know when a user’s identity has been compromised? This is a critical issue for every IT admin.
Management
IT admins have more responsibility than ever before. IT is critical to making any enterprise work these days. Businesses rely on email, applications, cloud-based infrastructure, and a multitude of devices to get their jobs done. What’s the one central, common requirement for all of those services? It’s a secure, robust identity management platform.
As organizations figure out how to leverage cloud infrastructure, heterogeneous environments, and Web-based apps, a drive to change their directory services will occur. A traditional on-premises directory isn’t going to work. As a result, this new category ofDirectory-as-a-Service® will have to rise to the occasion.
Rajat Bhargava is co-founder and CEO of JumpCloud, the first Directory-as-a-Service (DaaS). JumpCloud securely connects and manages employees, their devices and IT applications. An MIT graduate with two decades of experience in industries including cloud, security, networking and IT, Rajat is an eight-time entrepreneur with five exits including two IPOs, three trade sales and three companies still private.
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