CIAM is an acronym for Customer Identity and Access Management. It’s the general term for software that provides features like SSO (Single-Sign-On) to access multiple applications in one place, MFA (Multi Factor Authentication), provisioning of new users, revoking expired or compromised passwords and access tokens, reporting on application usage, and auditing.
The answer is that Okta provides CIAM features which means it can be a CIAM solution.
Neither Okta nor CIAM are exactly the same, yet Okta CIAM features are becoming more complete every day.
What is Okta, and what does it do?
Okta is an Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) cloud based solution that provides identity management for many systems. Okta allows you to manage identities in the cloud, not just on premises.
Their system gives you the ability to sync users from one application across all of your web and mobile apps. Users can authenticate to all of their apps with a single login, and Okta handles the business logic of who may access what. This means that developers don’t have to worry about coding any authorization or authentication into my app, which gets things up and running much faster.
How can Okta be used for CIAM purposes?
Okta can be used as a CIAM system for web and mobile apps, by allowing users to authenticate to all of their applications with a single login. This relieves developers from writing JavaScript/HTML/CSS codes for authentication and authorization into each application individually.
Is Okta the best CIAM solution out there?
Okta may not be the best CIAM solution out there, but it’s definitely one of the better solutions in the market, at least for web and mobile apps.
How does Okta compare to other CIAM solutions?
Okta is fairly similar to many other CIAM systems. They all offer the same functionality as Okta, such as single-sign on and access management. Where they differ, however, is in their own specific strengths and weaknesses.
What are the benefits of using Okta for CIAM purposes?
By using Okta for CIAM purposes, you will get the ability to manage users and all of their privileges in one centralized product. Okta can also be easily integrated into your existing infrastructure and provides a relatively quick time-to-market.
What’s the difference between Okta and other CIAM solutions?
Okta is a much newer company than many other CIAM providers and is thus able to adjust much more quickly to new technologies and changes in the market. Another difference between Okta and its competitors is that it has a very flexible pricing model, which allows you to pay for only the services you need.
CIAM & Okta: Different Solutions
Okta is a cloud-based identity management solution for web and mobile applications. It provides single sign-on (SSO) to any application integrated with the service, including custom or third party apps. Computing after login, such as authorization, authentication, session management and other tasks, is handled by Okta. You can easily integrate third-party applications with Okta and provide end users with SSO access to these apps.
Okta handles user data (identities) – not static data (like information about company departments). If you want more static company data like sales teams or support contacts, you might use a separate CMDB (configuration management database) instead of Okta.
Okta stores user data, not static company data. If you need more static company data about teams or support contacts, consider using a different CIAM solution.
How to utilize Okta’s CIAM
Once you have installed Okta, you need to configure a web app to use Okta as the SSO provider. Then, with a few simple clicks, you can offer your users single sign-on access with SAML 2.0 authentication via Okta’s OpenID Connect framework.
Okta CIAM solution that can integrate with third-party apps and give users great SSO and automation capabilities.
Conclusion
CIAM isn’t one specific product; it’s a set of features that is implemented differently by different providers. Okta has some of those features, like SSO and MFA, but not all the features included in the full CIAM definition. Two examples of this are the reporting features and the ability to do password resets on user accounts.
For CIAM solutions with basic, point-in-time reporting capabilities, consider using Okta or other SSO/MFA services instead of a dedicated CIAM product. If you need advanced reporting features or the ability to reset passwords for your users’ accounts, you’ll need to go with a true CIAM provider.