Top Six Things to Consider with an Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) Solution – Blog 2 of 6
2. Identity Where You Want It
An IDaaS solution also needs to be flexible, providing robust access to corporate identities managed on-premises (e.g., Active Directory or LDAP), a directory service in the cloud for non-AD users such as partners or customers, and when appropriate, a hybrid of the on-premisesand cloud directories. This is in stark contrast to other startup IDaaS vendors who only allowyou to store identity data in their cloud directory. In order to leverage user data stored andmanaged in Active Directory, they first require that a portion of this data be replicated to their cloud and out of your control.
This cloud-only approach may not appeal to some organizations that — rightly or wrongly —
have concerns about losing control of the proverbial keys to the kingdom. Organizations may
also have reservations of creating another silo of identity to manage, unique security or privacy
concerns, or legitimate concerns about the long-term viability of the vendor.
To enable this “identity where you want it,” a well-engineered IDaaS solution should deliver
robust integration with on-premises Active Directory or LDAP, should support cloud-only
deployments consisting of non-Active Directory or LDAP -based user identities, as well as a
hybrid of Active Directory, LDAP, and / or cloud deployment.
Active Directory support should offer built-in integrated windows authentication (IWA) without
separate infrastructure and should automatically load balance and failover without any
additional infrastructure or configuration. Most importantly, it should not replicate Active
Directory data to the cloud where it is out of the organization’s control — even if you choose to
manage some of your users via a cloud model.
The diagram below shows the deployment options an IDaaS solution should support. As you
can see, this hybrid approach gives you the best of both worlds in terms of flexibility.
Contact Us for more information on your IDaaS or Centrify Solutions.
