6 Reasons Microsoft Customers Choose Okta for Identity

Introduction

If your organization uses Microsoft, it’s time to take a closer look at identity management. The right identity solution can speed adoption of cloud technologies, and help modernize legacy systems and applications for the cloud. Many Microsoft customers end up choosing Okta to manage identity for their cloud applications. Here are six reasons why.

1. Simplified Single Sign-On from Active Directory

Organizations with investments in a directory service such as Active Directory want to use it to enable Single Sign-On (SSO) to both on-premises and cloud applications. When architected properly, Single Sign-On eliminates the frustration of having to create and remember unique passwords for each application, and it improves the security of corporate data.

Microsoft provides a set of tools to enable SSO via their Azure AD cloud service: Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), Azure AD Connect (previously known as DirSync), Password Sync, Passthrough authentication, and Microsoft Identity Manager (previously Forefront Identity Manager). These tools have gradually improved over time, but require deploying, configuring, and managing significant server resources. Each service requires individual configuration and integration with the Azure AD cloud service.

Customers turn to Okta when they realize they can deploy SSO from Active Directory in much less time. Okta is a vendor-neutral cloud based identity and access solution that requires no tradeoffs between ease of use and full functionality.