Cloud-Based IAM is Bigger, Better, Stronger than On-Prem IAM

That is the position is set out to convince people of with my talk ‘IDaaS: The Now Big Thing‘ at this years Cloud Identity Summit. Even with the words ‘Cloud’ and ‘Identity’ in the name of the conference, and even with a fairly friendly crowd, I knew that this would be a somewhat daunting challenge. 30 minutes is a short amount of time in which to make the case that IDaaS has better Security, Capabilities, Innovation and Usability than anything you can get deploying traditional IAM products in your on-premises environment. But that’s what I tried to do, and you can judge for yourself whether I succeeded or not by checking out the slidecast below.

I’ve re-recorded the audio (because I was told I spoke too fast) and synced it with the slides. Plus, since this is the fully remastered directors cut, I added in a bonus slide that you might enjoy (I’ll let folks figure out which one it is and leave their guess in the comments or on Twitter), and attached the audio from the in-room Q&A at the end. Overall, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on this talk. Yes, there was skepticism. Some folks made comments about never letting identity data about their employees leave their “control”, yet they are using SaaS applications that get a lot of this same identity data. Someone made the comment on stage that most enterprises would never let employee details leave their on-prem environment, yet SaaS HR solutions like Workday and Ultimate Software continue to grow and sign up marquee names.

But by and large, the resistance seems to be waning, and more than a few people told me that hearing my arguments for IDaaS has made them rethink their perspective regarding moving their IAM infrastructure to the cloud. There is still a ways to go, and I’m sure a lot of FUD will be thrown around, especially in the security realm. But those that are willing to dig into the details will be able to make an informed, positive decision that is right for them. As I said in my talk, the truth is out there, and while IDaaS isn’t necessarily for everyone, it has quickly become the smart decision for the vast majority of enterprises.

[Cross posted to the Identropy blog]