App Onboarding to an IAM Program Should be Seamless, Automated, Cost-Efficient, and a Highly Secure Experience
By Asif Savvas, Chief Product Officer, Simeio
The acceleration of digital transformation, brought on by the pandemic, has increased the need for modernized and converged IAM platforms. The modernization needed is not simply limited to a platform but requires new business processes and approaches for IAM adoption proliferation. Application onboarding is the cumulative result of people, processes, and technologies working together. A successful application onboarding result is achieved when “the big three” are streamlined.
Modernized application onboarding leverages automated processes through a repeatable model that smoothly moves applications into critical systems, like identity governance and administration (IGA), single sign-on (SSO), and other access management systems that have pervasive connectivity to dozens, and even thousands of applications.
Moving from traditional to modern app onboarding
Traditional app onboarding requires highly skilled resources. It is labor-intensive, which means it can produce errors when establishing configurations, accessing policies, and authenticating choices. This can complicate and prolong deployment cycles, which creates higher costs.
Modernized application onboarding simplifies the discovery of applications, with repeatable processes that pull and collect information directly from a configuration management database and centralized locations.
Many companies invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into IGA and other identity tools and solutions, but only connect a handful of their most critical applications. While this may be acceptable in the short-term, it does not elicit full value, or bode well as a return on investment over the long-term. It is understandable that only a small number of apps are connected, as the manual process can take months and many resources, with IT teams working diligently to onboard applications into the system. Realistically, it does not make sense to try and onboard hundreds, or thousands of apps manually. Therefore, organizations are turning to modernized app onboarding services, like Simeio’s.
Simeio’s modernized app onboarding service distributes ownership through its smart platform that uses leaner resources. We leverage standardized, self-service processes to shorten deployment cycles, and automation that eliminates errors. This minimizes operational effort and cost, while providing centralized visibility across identity services and all connected applications.
Simeio’s Nextgen Onboarding:
- A cross-service, cross-technology app onboarding platform
- Yearly onboarding-as-a-service includes up to 10 apps in the first year
- Provides unlimited app configuration management
- Supports PingFederate and Okta, and IGA services support for Saviynt
- Supports on-premises or SaaS IAM platforms
- Includes onboarding for IGA and access management services
App onboarding should be streamlined and cost-efficient
Modernized application onboarding simplifies the onboarding process, reduces IT team fatigue, and maximizes value and investment. One of the most critical benchmarks of a successful identity access and management program is connecting the information, data and applications needed to build an identity warehouse. This helps organizations gain a complete picture of their application state and provides a foundation for broad access protection across the enterprise.
Modernized application onboarding processes are repeatable. This enables companies to take in data at regular intervals, in real-time, or in batch mode, and create reports based upon actionable controls. Internal stakeholders gain valuable intelligence through a dashboard that shows the total number of apps within the organization, and the number of apps that have been onboarded.
The traditional app onboarding process can take four to six weeks for a single application. The process is very disruptive for the application owner, or group that is responsible for ensuring the application’s success, and safety. Part of the process includes sending out questionnaires, communicating via email, and documenting everything within worksheets.
Modernized application onboarding does not require work stoppages, and application owners can independently detail all the information. As a result, there are fewer meetings, emails and individuals engaged in the onboarding work. Application owners can focus on improving applications, rather than the arduous onboarding process. Giving more people a window into application onboarding increases efficiency, streamlines the process, and lowers costs. In fact, Simeio’s Nextgen Application Onboarding service can lower costs and reduce the time to onboard an app by as much as 80%.
There are other benefits that are less financially tangible, but extremely valuable. With modernized application onboarding, application owners feel like they are part of the company’s plan, and their applications are prioritized and valued by the rest of the organization.
To maximize digital transformation investments, IT teams must have the ability to easily and rapidly onboard all their apps, within their identity ecosystem. App onboarding requires a novel approach that streamlines the integration and coordination of people, processes, and technologies, that are essential for today’s digital transformation initiatives. Modernized app onboarding services are key to unlocking the potential for these initiatives, and for the proliferation of secure access and governance throughout the enterprise.
Learn more about Simeio’s Nextgen Application Onboarding here.
About the Author
Asif Savvas, is the Chief Product Officer at Simeio. Asif is responsible for building and rolling out innovative market leading service offerings backed with Simeio platform to drive new customer wins. His focus is on leveraging the latest and best fit technologies that enhance client experience in simplifying and managing their IAM programs.
Asif can be reached online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/asifsavvas/ and at our company website http://www.simeio.com
