Five Reasons to Transition Away from On-Premises Identity Systems
Traditional on-premises identity management solutions are no longer adequate to support small and midsize organizations. Moreover, modern Cloud alternatives have significantly eased the complexity and inefficiencies of premises-based identity management.
1. Expensive Hardware:
On-premises systems rely on a complex network topology of physical hardware located within an organization’s premises – which also means these servers require physical access to upgrade, can introduce security risks if they are not patched immediately, and require a secondary set of backup power and disaster recovery.
2. High Maintenance Costs:
Implementing and maintaining on-premises identity and access management (IAM) solutions is expensive. The costs include initial implementation costs, a high degree of specialization and skills, client and server software along with custom development expenses to support legacy and hybrid use cases, and dependency on IT to maintain service levels/uptime.
3. Slow and Ineffective Upgrades:
On-premises software vendors release updates infrequently and, in some cases, new features or bug fixes will not be provided for on-premises at all. Many vendors prioritize their Cloud identity platforms, which prevent organizations from fortifying infrastructure posture and enhancing identity security, leading to gaps, workarounds, and unaddressable risks.
4. Complexity of Managing Multiple Vendors:
Comprehensive IAM coverage requires protecting all departments, workforce employees, and third-party vendors. Some on-premises solutions struggle to achieve this comprehensively, leading to the need for multiple solutions and vendors, therefore increasing administrative overhead and potential supply chain risks.
5. Compliance and Regulatory Challenges:
As organizations evolve their cybersecurity programs, they must keep pace with the compliance and regulatory landscape. Some organizations believe that identity systems are somehow safer and mandated to be on-premises, which is incorrect. There is no legislation that requires identity systems to be on-premises.
As more industries and organizations are obligated to enforce modern, advanced authentication and access management controls to obtain cybersecurity insurance, the on-premises identity systems that served them well in the past are no longer adequate for small and midsize organizations. It is time to seriously consider transitioning to Cloud-based IAM solutions to enhance security, reduce costs, and achieve compliance and resiliency in the modern digital business environment.
