What is Idaptive? Centrify Spin Off- JumpCloud

Written by Zach DeMeyer on March 7, 2019

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There’s a new identity management player on the market called Idaptive. Many IT admins haven’t heard that name before, but they actually may be using their products already. Or, at the very least, they may have heard of their predecessor—Centrify®. In this blog post, we’ll answer the question: what is Idaptive?

Idaptive Origins

To start, Idaptive is a new organization that has been spun out of Centrify. Centrify, as you may know, has been a legacy directory extension, privileged identity management, and single sign-on (SSO) company. It seems as though those three areas have not been able to exist inside of one company. It is very likely that these three areas—all major categories in their own right—were competing for limited resources. The result was that Centrify decided that, in order to succeed, it needed to change its operating model.

So, Centrify decided to focus the actual Centrify brand name on privileged identity management, creating a spin off specifically for web application single sign-on, called Idaptive.

What is Idaptive?

Idaptive appears to be following the traditional first generation IDaaS path that has been paved by companies such as Okta® and OneLogin™. Idaptive provides web application single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (MFA/2FA), and analytics based around a zero trust security model. Idaptive’s single sign-on product focuses on the traditional SAML protocol and likely has thousands of connectors to applications similarly to market leaders like Okta, Google®, Microsoft®, and AWS®.

While Idaptive is a new company, their web application single sign-on solution has been in market for a number of years, which is also why many IT admins may be using the platform and not even realize it. It is a bit curious why Centrify made the move to spin out the web application SSO business into a market that is highly competitive and somewhat commoditized already. Regardless, these changes are causing many IT admins to evaluate how they  think about both Centrify and Idaptive and identity and access management (IAM) as a whole.

Idaptive and IAM as a Whole

While Idaptive continues to pile into the web application SSO category, IT admins are continuing to think hard about what identity and access management (IAM) looks like in the modern, cloud era. To that end, an area of particular consideration is the ability to centrally manage identities across a wide range of IT resources. These resources include systems (Mac®, Windows®, Linux®), cloud and on-prem servers (e.g. AWS, GCP™), web and on-prem applications via SAML and LDAP, physical and virtual file servers such as Box™, Samba, NAS appliances, and others, and wired and WiFi networks through RADIUS.

Thankfully, there is a cloud directory service that is on the market today which centralizes system management, IDaaS, SAML, LDAP, RADIUS authentication, and more into one unified solution. Called JumpCloud® Directory-as-a-Service®, this solution has reimagined the directory service for the modern era. Directory-as-a-Service (DaaS) creates a True Single Sign-On™ experience for IT organizations, alleviating the need for services like Idaptive.

Learn More

Now that you know what Idaptive is and how it’s scrambling to enter the SSO market, consider JumpCloud Directory-as-a-Service as your sole cloud identity provider. You can learn more about the DaaS product from our YouTube channel, or simply by reaching out to us with your questions. You can also try Directory-as-a-Service absolutely free, with ten users included forever to boot.

Zach DeMeyer

Zach is a Product Marketing Specialist at JumpCloud with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He loves being on the cutting edge of new technology, and when he's not working, he enjoys all things outdoors, music, and soccer.

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