Hybrid Challenges – Unifying Identities in Hybrid IAM
I had an amazing discussion on my thoughts shared on Hybrid IT with few of you. One important challenge that was identified was unifying identities in a Hybrid setup. No doubt, identities drive IT processes in an enterprise setup, unification of identities thus becomes an important aspect of IT processes. Many a time, unifying identities from multiple target systems becomes a challenge owing to structural issues. In a lot of IT integrations, the target source(s) such as Active Directory are burdened to fetch identity related information and are connected to various applications – creating complex systems processes. Furthermore, if more target source(s) are added due to business expansion, to the IT System, it gets complex to manage.
As same set of identity gets fed to cloud and On Premises IAM, the approach needs a relook as in the long run as it will create a layer of complexity with the introduction of target source.
For IT integrations, target sources are burdened to supply identity related information to ensure correct access to applications, tools and/or IT Systems. This integration approach necessitates the target sources to link identities with diverse and unrelated information, impacting system efficiency and IT workflows. In many cases target sources are not the true identity sources, therefore pulling identity from an untrue identity source results into additional maintenance challenges.
In a Hybrid Setup – the user identity sources are connected to On Premises system and gets connected On Cloud IdM via Active Directory Bridges. The information passed on through an Active Directory bridge is not real time, and creates clutter, which is supposedly to be scaled and but ends up bringing complexity.
In a Hybrid setting, same set of identity is being fed to both cloud and On Premises IAM – This approach does not help for the long run as it creates a layer of complexity with the introduction of any new target source.
So far I have listed three big challenges in Hybrid IT
- Aligning Enterprise IAM Processes
- Achieving cost benefit in Hybrid IdM
- Unifying Identities from multiple target sources
Based on the above-mentioned challenges, please visit Identity Bridge and share your thoughts on management of Hybrid IAM. Do drop in your comments and thoughts.
