Digital identity orchestration providers see IAM upgrade opportunity for organizations

Businesses attempting to stitch together software and services to fill distinct but related rolls in digital identity and access management (IAM) are adopting identity orchestration software, but not as quickly as some think they should.

Fragmented identity systems that degrade the user experience, in some cases for employees and in others for consumers, are a common outcome of digital transformation, according to perspectives on identity orchestration offered recently by IBM, Ping Identity and Strata Identity.

A survey from Productiv, published a year ago and cited in a post by IBM, says the average business department uses 87 software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps. Many among this collection of apps will have their own identity systems, and will not easily integrate with each other.

Orchestration platforms integrate disparate digital identity tools and apps into streamlined workflows or “user journeys,” with prebuilt connectors, APIs and protocols like SAML and OAuth. Orchestrated systems are sometimes referred to as “identity fabric.”

“All of a company’s identity tools integrate with the orchestration software, which creates and manages connections between them,” IBM summarizes. “This capability enables the organization to build custom IAM architecture, like vendor-agnostic single sign-on (SSO) systems, without replacing or retooling existing systems.”

IBM shares an example of an employee onboarding workflow, from the initial enrollment in a self-service HR portal to the assignment of privileges and single sign-on (SSO) credentials.

Beyond SSO, IBM notes that digital identity orchestration can help organizations meet compliance requirements, enable smooth functioning across multi-cloud environments and add security measures like multi-factor authentication or passwordless access control to legacy systems.

Organizations that are delaying identity orchestration are leaving money on the table, according to Ping Identity CPO Peter Barker.

Barker writes in a Forbes Council Post that abandoned logins can be reduced and employee productivity improved with identity orchestration. It also allows overworked security teams to more easily manage complex IT environments, and allows administrators to more quickly test and deploy workflows for better operational efficiency.

He also notes that identity orchestration platforms shift the requirements for administration away from coding. Low-code and no-code orchestration platforms have been launched by providers including Ping, Jumio and Trust Stamp, and compete with platforms built through acquisition like those from Incode and Mitek.

Organizations that have invested large amounts of time and effort into building workflows with their legacy identity management systems may find the transition to identity orchestration laborious, however, Barker warns.

A manual for automation

To help organizations navigate this transition, Strata Identity CEO Eric Olden and Content Strategy Lead Heidi King have co-written “Identity Orchestration for Dummies.”

The book frames identity orchestration as the future of IAM, and is intended to help CISOs and digital identity architects adopt orchestration without major investments of time and money.

Strata recently launched an Identity Continuity feature for its orchestration platform.

Article Topics

digital identity  |  IBM  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  identity fabric  |  identity orchestration  |  Ping Identity  |  Strata Identity