Insight
- Directories connect your users to the IT resources they need, including devices, cloud servers, IT applications, and web apps.
- Manually managing provisioning, deprovisioning, and user access changes is time-consuming and risky. Avoid mistakes by leveraging a directory.
- Security is a core reason for organizations to implement a directory. By centrally controlling user access, there is less chance for malicious or rogue users to gain access to your infrastructure.
Are you getting by without a directory or identity management solution? It’s understandable. Lot’s of companies are in this situation, for many different reasons. Maybe you are a small organization that is manually provisioning users on devices, or managing users through a scripted solution. Maybe your organization is native to the cloud and has no on-premises infrastructure. Or, perhaps you think that getting a directory service is too complex or expensive, and the level of required effort isn’t worth the perceived benefits. The problem is that these situations lead to significant problems as your organization scales in growth. Once an organization hits more than around 5 employees needing access to resources, managing those needs becomes a job for a directory service.
Benefits of Getting an Identity Management Platform
User management and directories are some of the most essential parts of IT infrastructure, for a few key reasons.
Central Control
It is crucial that an organization controls access to their IT resources. This control involves organizing all of the users and the specific resources that each user may have access to. While this may be possible with only a few employees and resources, it quickly becomes an impossible task as each number grows. Having a cloud directory service like Directory-as-a-Service® can simplify this process, turning the impossible task into a small part of an IT admins day through centralized control over user management (web and on prem applications), system management (Windows®, Mac®, and Linux®), and network management (RADIUS-as-a-Service). Click here to learn more about Identity Access Control.
Security
Without an identity and access management solution, you are leaving your organization vulnerable to security issues. An organization must be able to track a user’s resources, be able to disable access to resources when a user is offboarded, be able to ensure security over all of the employees identities, and more. JumpCloud’s Directory-as-a-Service manages an organization’s users and their connections to IT resources by acting as the central point of authority. This means that the cloud-based directory can ensure that access to IT resources are granted to the right users, access can be removed easily when a user is offboarded, identities are protected through one-way hashing and salting, passwords comply with the organization’s standard of security, and much more. Click here to learn more about security.
Auditing Users and Access
Along with having central control, it is important for a organization to know that their access control is working correctly. Without a directory service, there is no way to ensure that users have access to only the correct resources. This lack of visibility into your systems can lead to data theft, breaches, or gaps in your systems. On top of this, if your organization is held to any regulatory standards such as PCI, HIPAA, or SOX the issue becomes much more serious. Having a unified cloud directory like Directory-as-a-Service® gives your organization accountability through the ability to see all of the access your users have to each resource, and know when they accessed it. Click here to learn more about auditing and compliance.
Choosing an Identity and Access Management Solution
There are many options in the directory services space, like an OpenLDAP™ implementation or a Microsoft® Active Directory® server. These solutions have long been the standard, but they both have a growing list of problems. Both legacy directories are difficult to implement and manage, and on top of that AD can’t support the diverse platform environments or function in a solely cloud environment. Still, having a user directory is essential to securely and systematically connecting your users to their devices, applications, data and files, networks and other IT resources. The right directory service means better security, with less effort. Directory-as-a-Service® was created to do just that. Click here to try JumpCloud for yourself. Alternatively, you can contact us with any questions you have.