Cloud Identity
Managing identity in the cloud is not for the faint-hearted. There are several aspects of identity management that must be considered:
- Outbound Employee access – this is the core feature that must be provided. Staff need access to both on-premise and cloud-based applications, and single sign-on is expected. This should ideally be provided from a single identity repository (not one on-premise and another in-the-cloud) and via multi-tenanted infrastructure.
- Employee as-a-service – once the infrastructure is in place, staff should then be able to use their validated identity service for other things. It is a small stretch to offer an OpenID service to allow staff to access other SaaS applications.
- Partner Access – it is now common for companies to provide authenticated access to their systems for business partners. This make a lot of since since it reduces the cost of managing partner access to business applications.
- Consumer access – authenticating access for consumers is becoming increasingly beneficial for many organisations. It means that a tailored service can be offered to members of the public, significantly improving their on-line experience and increasing the “stickiness” of the consumer relationship.
