The rapid adoption of SaaS applications combined with Bring-Your-Own Device (BYOD) programs means that IT organisations increasingly don’t own the endpoint devices or back-end application resources. Centralised management of users’ digital identity that spans on-premise and cloud resources provides the visibility and control required for organisations to achieve compliance, reduce costs and mitigate risks, while also enabling productivity and secure access for user centric, mobile workforces.
Today’s announcement of comprehensive SaaS and Cloud Services support — coupled with Centrify’s support for more than 400 operating systems and dozens of on-premise apps, and rich support for mobile devices — lets Centrify customers take advantage of their existing Microsoft Active Directory investments across the industry’s broadest range of systems, mobile devices and apps deployed both on-premise and in the cloud. Centrify’s new Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) offering — Centrify DirectControl for SaaS — will be unveiled and demonstrated for the first time at the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit in Las Vegas, in Booth No. PL3 this week.
“As organisational boundaries continue to erode under the pressure of federation and outsourcing, and as enterprise control over IT continues to weaken through increased adoption of mobile devices and cloud services, identity is more important than ever, and more problematic,” said Ian Glazer, Research VP at Gartner. “Identity teams must strengthen federation capabilities to properly connect software as a service (SaaS) to the enterprise…Identity teams should also consider an identity bridge to connect to identity as a service (IDaaS) offerings.”
“The Windows Azure cloud platform builds on and utilises Microsoft’s core technologies, including security and identity with Active Directory,” said Karri Alexion-Tiernan, Director, Windows Azure Product Marketing, Microsoft. “As a Windows Azure customer and partner, Centrify extends Windows Azure functionality with an on-demand identity service across the data center, cloud, and mobile that lets IT take advantage of their existing skills and Active Directory infrastructure.”