The Foundation for Cloud-first, Mobile-first IT

In the legacy IAM world, identity governance and administration (IGA) products were often designed for maximum flexibility – but this led to endless customization work and complexity. Okta offers a solution to access management for the modern world. This paper introduces identity lifecycle management – user provisioning and de-provisioning – and the importance of building a solid foundation for cloud-first, mobile-first IT.

Getting Started: Becoming the Department of “Yes”

Gone is the notion of command and control IT, where all devices, applications and user experiences were dictated centrally. Adoption of cloud and mobile, with a boost from the Okta Application Network, has enabled organizations of all sizes to start saying “yes” more often to business groups and end users. New marketing app? Yes! New tablet? Yes! New special-purpose project management tool? Absolutely!

With all these yeses, the number of cloud apps an organization uses explodes. Customers tell us before they purchase Okta, they typically have five to seven cloud apps. Within six months of purchasing Okta, customers connect 10 applications, with 10% of Okta customers eventually connecting more than 40 applications. In the Okta Businesses @ Work report, we found that the average Okta customer has 13 cloud applications.

For most customers, Okta solves the basic problems of too many helpdesk calls and too much wasted end-user time remembering passwords, and the security concerns of users re-using personal passwords across many business apps. With Okta Provisioning, many of our customers also reduce IT admin time spent provisioning and deprovisioning accounts in