When you use Okta, you might never require using a password again. That’s a great proposition for the fast-paced corporate world of the current times.
As a platform, Okta falls in the Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) category. This implies that Okta will give your colleagues and yourself access to all company software using a single login.
Okta is a multiplatform software characterized by its high availability. You can use it over a tablet, smartphone, desktop, or laptop. Your applications, you can access at all times and from everywhere. But all of this needs to be done securely. It’s the digital age that we live in, and controlling access to applications is also important. Even more, organizations are in the process of making a switchover to cloud solutions through the current times.
Work more efficiently even as you save time
By using Okta’s services, an end-user is empowered to log in 50% quicker. Further, Okta ensures that at your organization’s helpdesk, there is a 50% reduction in queries associated with the login.
Let us know about Okta in further detail:
What is Okta
As a secure and customizable drop-in solution, Okta adds authorization and authentication services to your applications. This way, scalable authentication is built right within your applications. One would not be required to know in-depth about the security risks, development overhead, and maintenance involved with creating the authentication by oneself.
There are no constraints over connecting any application to Okta, and this application could be in any stack or language. Whenever a user attempts to authenticate, Okta sends this information back to your app upon verifying the user’s identity.
One can also use Okta’s APIs or SDKs for connecting apps, configuring rules, adding users, customizing the sign-in page, and monitoring services using Okta’s built-in reports.
What can one do using Okta?
To understand what all one can do using Okta, we should be taking a look at Okta’s use cases:
Adding authorization and authentication to an app that you built:
By using Okta, one lets one’s users sign-in in two ways, either by using their user names and passwords or by using their social media accounts. These social media accounts include Google and Facebook, and the sign-in is accomplished using Okta’s pre-built components. After a user signs in, then, to customize the UI based on their role, Okta can retrieve the user profile and apply your authorization policies.
Adding authorization and authentication to an API that you built:
Okta is the ideal resource for securing your application and API backends. This way, only the authorized applications and users will call them. You can use Okta for defining configure policies, claims, and scopes. This helps determine who has access to your API resources.
Implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) for multiple apps:
When you use Okta, you allow your users to sign in to other applications without them having to remember a separate set of credentials for each service or application that they use. All the users will be required to do is sign in once, and they will be empowered to use your full suite of applications.
Enforcing multifactor authentication (MFA) when your users intend to access sensitive data:
You can leverage Okta for enabling the second level of security, via SMS, Voice, Email, Okta Verify or Biometrics, etc. This is for each use case of configuring policies or sign in. MFA is enforced based on network or location.
Federating your users using an existing enterprise directory:
By using LDAP servers, Active Directory (AD), or their existing enterprise credentials, you allow users to sign in to the various third-party and internal applications when you use Okta.
Managing users that access your applications:
By using Okta’s UI you can remove or add users, or modify authorization attributes or profiles. This facilitates you to troubleshoot the sign-in issues of the users quickly. From a single dedicated location, you can manage both, your users and their data. You can sync users with a range of user stores, third-party apps, and services.
What does Okta do?
As an enterprise-grade identity management service, Okta has been built for the cloud. But, it is compatible with a range of on-premise applications.
So, when any person intends to connect with any application, he can do so over any device by using Okta. Okta empowers IT to manage employees’ access to any device or application. Over a reliable, secure, and extensively audited platform, Okta runs in the cloud. This platform deeply integrates with on-premise identity management systems, directories, and applications.
The driving forces behind the formulation of Okta
Technology, nowadays, grows at an unprecedented rate, and persistently puts forth new challenges before us. We come across more mobile devices than we ever used to do earlier. Identity issues cannot be ignored in such a scenario, and nor can the matters associated with vendor partnership, employee mobility, and security. Unique application options have also grown exponentially.
To overcome these challenges, Okta brings to us a range of important features, including Provisioning, Active Directory (AD), Single Sign-On (SSO), and LDAP integration. Other top features of Okta include centralized de-provisioning of users, mobile identity management, multifactor authentication (MFA), and flexible policies for organization control and security.
Okta Integration Network (OIN) — a network of pre-integrated applications brings all these functions together. Via OIN, diverse integration options are made available. SSO login is made available for all apps that your users will be required to access during the course of their work.
LDAP Integration and Active Directory
In most enterprises, the authoritative user directory that governs access to key business applications is Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD). SaaS applications, running outside a firewall are beyond AD’s reach. Multiple usernames and logins are hence required, but with Okta, they won’t be required. All associated hassles, such as creating, managing, and mapping user accounts in AD and across their SaaS applications are overcome.
Okta overcomes these problems with an easy-to-use, robust, and complete AD SSO integration. Active Directory alternatives include LDAP and other on-premises identity managers.
Conclusion
The “Okta solution” overcomes the technological and economic limitations of any legacy identity management scheme your organization currently uses.
