Table of Contents
- Summary
- Market Categories and Deployment Types
- Key Criteria Comparison
- GigaOm Radar
- Vendor Insights
- Analyst’s Take
- Methodology
- About Paul Stringfellow
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Summary
Identity is at the core of the modern business environment. It’s the control plane for how users, partners, and customers interact with systems and data, whether that environment is in the data center, hosted by a partner, or on one of the many cloud platforms.
Traditionally, identity was managed in the data center through user directories and application databases. Over time, this evolved into a centralized identity management approach, with a single authoritative database to manage identity across multiple applications. However, our enterprise IT environments have become increasingly complex. We must now contend with a more distributed workforce, the adoption of enterprise cloud and software as a service (SaaS), along with ever-changing security threats. As these environments evolve, so too does the challenge of managing and securing identities.
New approaches to managing enterprise identities are needed, requiring solutions that are easier to deploy, more scalable, and better aligned with our use of the cloud. This has given rise to identity as a service (IDaaS) solutions that provide services across distributed infrastructure and user bases, manage across boundaries to enhance collaboration, reduce complexity, and improve security.
A robust approach to identity management is critical for enterprises as the risk posed to a business by compromised identity is significant. Not securing your users’ identities effectively is reckless and should not be tolerated in the modern enterprise.
The IDaaS market is competitive with many strong players, so choosing the right solution can be difficult.
This GigaOm Radar report highlights key IDaaS vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use-case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating Identity as a Service Solutions,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market. Together they provide an overview of how these offerings address the complex challenges presented by enterprise identity management and can help buying teams make a more informed purchase decision.
How to Read this Report
This GigaOm report is one of a series of documents that helps IT organizations assess competing solutions in the context of well-defined features and criteria. For a fuller understanding, consider reviewing the following reports:
Key Criteria report: A detailed market sector analysis that assesses the impact that key product features and criteria have on top-line solution characteristics—such as scalability, performance, and TCO—that drive purchase decisions.
GigaOm Radar report: A forward-looking analysis that plots the relative value and progression of vendor solutions along multiple axes based on strategy and execution. The Radar report includes a breakdown of each vendor’s offering in the sector.
Solution Profile: An in-depth vendor analysis that builds on the framework developed in the Key Criteria and Radar reports to assess a company’s engagement within a technology sector. This analysis includes forward-looking guidance around both strategy and product.