Identity and access management as service, or IDaaS, is the delivery of Identity and access management solutions as a service via the cloud in a multitenant or dedicated model. IDaaS solutions deliver core identity governance, access, and intelligence capabilities to customers systems, both on-premise and in the cloud.
In its early days, IDaaS market growth was driven by small and midsized businesses that looked to cloud-based SaaS delivery models to simplify their application deployment and usage.
Since then, IDaaS functionality has improved at a rapid pace, and today many cloud-based vendors can deliver the same functionality expected from traditional full-featured, on-premises IAM stacks.
Gartner analysts predict that by 2020, 40 percent of IAM purchases will use the IDaaS delivery model, a two-fold increase from less than 20 percent today. Perhaps more important is that 40 percent of those IDaaS implications will entirely replace on-premises IAM implementations, according to Gartner. The future, it seems, is in the cloud.
In that spirit, we’ve turned our gaze to the future of IDaaS. Whether its inclusion in the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant, the release of an impressive new tool, a trail of acquisitions, or the securing of a new round of funding, these are the top seven IDaaS vendors we are keeping our eye on for 2018 and beyond:
California-based OneLogin provides an on-demand IDaaS solution consisting of single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, directory integration, user provisioning, and a catalog of pre-integrated applications. As major proponents of the OpenID Native Applications Working Group (NAPPS), OneLogin has taken a standards-based approach to application integration and established itself as a thought leader in the field of authentication. The company has seen strong growth in recent years, but hit a rough patch in 2017, when it reported that intruders had breached its US data center and access customer data, including the ability to decrypt encrypted data. OneLogin seems to have recovered handily, though, and recently added adaptive authentication support to its platform.
San Francisco-based Centrify’s IDaaS solution offers secure access to cloud and mobile apps via SSO, user provisioning, mobile device management (MDM), and multi-factor authentication (MFA) capabilities.
The company has gained popularity due to its integrated MDM capabilities, which are some of the strongest in the market and match the capabilities of many MDM vendors, but has recently branched out with a SaaS-based PIM solution.
The most well-known brand on our list, Microsoft made its first foray into the IDaaS market with the May 2014 release of its Azure Active Directory (AAD) Premium service. Since then the technology giant has made a large impact on the market. AAD offers comparable capabilities to other IDaaS offerings and includes access to Microsoft Identity Manager products for use with on-premise systems. AAD makes a strong choice for enterprise customers deeply familiar with Microsoft’s ecosystem, or who already use Microsoft’s Azure cloud PaaS service. However, customers looking for deep CIAM (B2C) and user provisioning capabilities should beware, as Microsoft has yet to catch up to the competition in these regards.
The Okta identity management service provides directory services, SSO, strong authentication, provisioning, workflow, and reporting, all delivered as a multitenant IDaaS though some components reside on-premise. Aside from standard IDaaS capabilities, Okta also provides MDM and phone-as-a-token authentication capabilities. Okta’s IDaaS offering boasts one of the fastest growing customer bases in the market and the funding to match—the company has reached “unicorn” levels of funding in recent years. 2017 saw a frenzy of activity for Okta, with multiple acquisitions and a filing for IPO.
Netherlands–based iWelcome offers an open-source based IDaaS solution that includes authentication, SSO, federation, self-service registration and user provisioning capabilities for both on-premise and cloud applications, all delivered via a dedicated single-tenant delivery model that allows for customization and white-labeling. iWelcome mainly deals in B2B and B2C use cases, and the company has recently rebuilt its platform for increased GDPR and Consent support. Consent Life Cycle Management is now available as a stand-alone product, which can be integrated with any authentication service.
The Ping Identity Platform is a multi-tenant, web-centric IDaaS offering that provides secure single sign-on from any device and provides administrators with a single dashboard from which they can manage user access to all applications. The company made waves last year with its acquisitions of CIAM-provider UnboundID, and has since expanded its focus on CIAM and IoT deployments. A recent updated to the Ping platform added contextual access management and policy support for the OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 standards.
Big Blue has recently emerged as a major player in the IDaaS market with their IBM Cloud Identity Service, which offers cloud-based IAM capabilities, with the ability to operate in combination with IBM on-premise infrastructure. The company ranked well on Gartinauguralagural Access Management Magic Quadrant, though it was criticized for a low feature count. Existing relationships with large enterprises make IBM Cloud Identity Service an easy prediction for growth in the coming years.
Jeff Edwards
Jeff Edwards is an enterprise technology writer and analyst covering Identity Management, SIEM, Endpoint Protection, and Cybersecurity writ large. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and previously worked as a reporter covering Boston City Hall.
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