Key Criteria for Evaluating Identity As a Service (IDaaS) Solutionsv2.0

1. Summary

Identity management presents a significant challenge to organizations as more complex and distributed environments continue to impact their operations management and user experience (UX). Securing the identity of users is crucial for controlling access to resources, and it’s at the heart of cybersecurity efforts because the impact of a credential or identity security breach is potentially catastrophic. Therefore, finding a robust identity management approach is essential.

Identity management platforms must cover the broad spectrum of identity security challenges, which include more distributed workforces and infrastructure, complex password management, identity management overhead, growing compliance requirements, ever-increasing data breaches, and the ubiquitous demand for optimal UX. These challenges, together with the complexity of modern infrastructure, have made it difficult to architect, maintain, and operate traditional identity management platforms. However, they have helped to drive growth in the identity as a service (IDaaS) market, which provides these services via the cloud, delivered and maintained by the vendor or one of its partners, supplying a more scalable solution that simplifies integration with multiple systems, improves the UX, lowers management overhead, and critically improves security.

The risk posed to a business by compromised identity is significant, so not securing identity effectively is reckless. A competent and efficient approach means having a strategy and toolset capable of addressing these challenges. Many organizations are finding that an IDaaS solution is the best way to do so.

The importance of identity—and the potential complexity of solutions that help address it—means that IDaaS solutions are expected to continue to grow rapidly through the rest of the decade as this specialized functionality is better at meeting the needs of the modern organization than any solution the organization might deploy and maintain on its own.

In this annual refresh of our IDaaS research, we evaluate first how well leading IDaaS vendors are helping customers tackle evolving identity security challenges, and then whether they are doing so in a holistic and easily manageable fashion. Effective IDaaS will ensure authorized and authenticated access to data and systems, helping to prevent cybersecurity breaches leading to malicious attacks on data, systems, and applications within an organization.

The GigaOm Key Criteria and Radar reports provide an overview of the IDaaS market, identify capabilities (table stakes, key criteria, and emerging technologies) and non-functional requirements (evaluation metrics) for selecting an IDaaS solution, and detail vendors and products that excel. These reports give prospective buyers an overview of the top vendors in this sector and help decision-makers evaluate solutions and decide where to invest.