The IAM Pro’s Guide to Building a Business Case

As an Identity and Access Management (IAM) professional, you know that your company’s access security needs have changed. Controlling access to on-premises applications was a different challenge than the one you face today.

More and more applications are moving to the cloud and mobile. APIs are everywhere. The number of devices, identities, domains, sites, stacks and environments is exploding. Enterprises have billions of endpoints to secure. And everyone’s an insider, including employees, contractors, suppliers, distributors and customers.

Once the de facto standard, the web access management (WAM) solution of yesterday isn’t designed for the requirements you face today. You can try to force a round peg into a square hole, but at what cost? There’s a hefty price to pay not only in dollars, but in user experience and security.

You know you need a better solution.

Security is no longer about just keeping the bad guys out. And it’s not simply a one-time event.

Security in the modern enterprise must be dynamic, responding to a user’s location, time, behavior, network and device.

The past perimeter-defined approach of firewalls and passwords just doesn’t cut it any more. Digital enterprise transformation requires a new approach. And identity provides it.

A modern access security solution, centered on identity, will provide the security you need and a whole lot more.

So how do you get others to see this, too?

By building a solid business case, you can guide your company to a better solution. You can demonstrate how IAM can drive your organization forward by:

• Accelerating time to market for new applications and services
• Enhancing security for applications on premises and in the cloud
• Reducing IT costs and increasing predictability of operating expenses

These are just some of the benefits of modern access security. And it’s no accident that they’re aligned to your company’s top strategic objectives.

This paper will explain how IAM can provide the secure access you need, accelerating digital transformation and propelling your company forward. 

WAM solutions work fine for web apps on a single domain. This legacy architecture was designed to protect simple web resources that are hosted in enterprise data centers, and it does that job well.

Because of the purpose it was designed for, WAM tightly couples the relationship between legacy agents and policy servers, and relies on heavy communication. But as your business becomes more mobile, apps migrate to the cloud, and APIs connect it all, this architecture just can’t keep up.

Here are five ways your WAM solution falls short of today’s requirements:

In an increasingly digital and mobile landscape, your enterprise needs to continuously verify all users and devices at all entry points. You need to enable secure access for everyone to all applications no matter their type or where they live (public cloud, private cloud, on-premises, enterprise, third-party, mobile). You must accommodate access across cloud, mobile and APIs.

And, of course, you must provide this high level of security while delivering the frictionless experience your users demand. Seems like a tall order? It is. And it’s exactly what modern access security solutions are designed to do.

Figure 2: Lightweight and cloud-ready modern access security deployment shown with optional SSO and directory components. 

When it comes to meeting the demands of modern access security, a best-in-breed identity and access management solution must deliver on these eight characteristics:

When it comes to building your case for modern access security, you can point to benefits that extend far beyond your direct purview. A well-architected solution will deliver value throughout your organization.

Security & Compliance

• Reduces risk of breach and non-compliance with centralized, policy-driven access control.
• Increases security without impacting productivity and with access security in context.

IT Executives

• Allows access to be centrally controlled for almost any resource, anywhere.
• Reduces vendor lock-in with future-proofed solutions built on open standards.
• Increases IT capacity with easily repeated, secure rollouts of new apps.
• Enables new partner relationships by connecting applications to third-party APIs.

IT Budget Owners

• Reduces on-premises hardware requirements.
• Reduces professional services requirements by shifting to a predictable subscription model.
• Reduces IT staffing previously required for administration of multiple, complex legacy solutions.

Application Developers

• Streamlines and centralizes authorization processes for lower coordination costs.
• Speeds time to market for new applications and services.

Human Resources

• Reduces need for highly specialized and solution-specific talent.

Of course, your business case isn’t complete without an assessment of the bottom-line value an IAM solution delivers. Modernization may be thought to come at a high price, but when it comes to modernizing access security, it’s actually the savings that are often most significant.

Infrastructure Savings

When migrating to modern access security, a reduction in server quantity, and the associated labor, utilities, maintenance and support on server hardware typically equates to notable cost savings. Legacy WAM solutions typically require on-premises infrastructure to store sessions, policies and encryption keys. But modern solutions, like PingAccess, are headless and stateless, enabling lightweight deployment on cloud platforms at a much lower cost.

Licensing and Support Savings

It can be tricky to unbundle the licensing costs from legacy “stack vendors” to pinpoint what exactly you’re paying for. A good proxy for calculating annual maintenance and support costs is 20-25% of the annual licensing cost. However, many legacy customers find that usage of their legacy WAM changes over time. As usage tapers, maintenance and support costs are proportionately more expensive than they should be. A subscription model makes it clear what you’re paying for and allows you to more accurately predict ongoing costs.

Labor Savings

Depending on the size and complexity of the environment, legacy WAM solutions can require multiple full-time administrators to ensure that applications remain secure and that access security isn’t interfering with business operations. The resources required to operate and maintain these systems, which often involve thousands of agents installed on hundreds of servers, constitute a significant cost to the enterprise. Add in upgrade cycles every three years that require hundreds of hours of professional services work, and the costs just ballooned further. Finally, the inability to share policies between API and web application security doubles the administrative effort. By contrast, modern access security deployed in a gateway architecture requires far less maintenance and enables you to share policies between web applications and APIs in any domain.

You know that an investment in modern access management will provide the scalability and flexibility your enterprise needs to support bigger corporate objectives. From securely rolling out new cloud and mobile applications to enabling new business relationships, the benefits of modern access management will extend throughout your organization.

Here’s a quick overview of how a modern solution centered on identity will address your objectives and align to business initiatives.

Accelerate time to market for new applications and services

• Reduce coordination costs between central IT and application developers.
• Decrease time to value with shareable policies for web, mobile and cloud apps.
• Shorten integration periods with out-of-the-box support for almost any platform.
• Enhance current relationships and create new ones with secure partner access.

Improve security for applications on premises and in the cloud

• Centralize access security for all web, mobile and cloud apps, whether commercial or homegrown.
• Protect resources in context of the user, application or access scenario.
• Reduce risk of breach by preventing unrelated applications from impersonating end users.
• Strengthen IT compliance with centralized policy management for all resource access.

Reduce IT costs and increase predictability of operating expenses

• Reduce siloed legacy implementations with centralized access security.
• Increase solution scalability and decrease hardware footprint.
• Stabilize costs and IT workload with predictable subscription model and updates.
• Leverage open standards to minimize lock in and minimize the need for specialized talent.

Ready to build your business case? Learn about how to seamlessly migrate from legacy WAM solutions here:

• CA Siteminder Migration Guide
• Oracle Access Manager Migration Guide
• RSA Access Manager Migration Guide

And be sure to read parts two and three of the IAM Pro’s Guide to Building a Business Case:

• Part Two: Upgrading On-prem 2FA to Cloud-delivered, Adaptive MFA
• Part Three: Consolidating Identities with a Modern Directory Solution
  
   

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