IDaaS Offers Massive Benefits for SMBs and Larger Companies Migrating to the Cloud

When companies as old and established as Post Holdings, the name behind Fruity Pebbles and other popular food items, make a 100-percent shift to the cloud, that signifies a massive change in the way IT departments are doing business. And with that change comes a number of challenges as companies seek simple and centralized solutions for managing end user identity and authentication. That’s where identity and access management as a service (IDaaS) enters the scene.

Okta, an IDaaS service provider that offers a single sign-on service for cloud applications, aims to help IT departments and workers manage authorization and logins for cloud-based applications. For mega-company Post, this type of service proved invaluable as the company transitioned to the cloud.

The 100-year-old cereal giant essentially became a startup company recently when it was spun off from Ralcorp Holdings and was basically left without an IT department. When new blood arrived on the scene, they decided to go exclusively with cloud-based applications for the company’s 1,300 workers. That presented massive efficiencies and flexibility for Post, but also security and management challenges as well.                                     

Okta is one of a new breed of companies offering cloud-based solutions to help IT departments manage authorization and logins exclusively for cloud-based apps as well as hybrid architectures, with a blend of cloud and on-premises apps. IDaaS is a burgeoning space, with other players including Ping Identity, OneLogin and Symplified. Gartner estimates the market will reach $265 million by the end of this year, a jump from $180 at the end of 2012.

IDaaS offerings typically help IT departments consolidate cloud apps into a single directory, enabling workers to have one user name and password for accessing all apps. End users access cloud apps via a portal and need only sign in once to access all apps. Services are linked with an existing Active Directory or LDAP directory and IT admins may easily provision and de-provision users from corporate services as needed.

Reed Online is another company that recently made the switch to mostly cloud-based apps. The company was seeking a solution that enabled all applications to be accessible via a browser and ended up with a single sign-on service from OneLogin.