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Top 10 Best IAM Tools – Identity Access Management (Pros Cons). In this post, we introduce IAM then explain about top IAM tools you can implement in your business to keep data safe from malicious activities.

Security plays a crucial role for businesses with an online presence. All in all, it remains at the forefront of their network administration strategy. Why? Because they always need to have information about people accessing their digital resources.

It is therefore essential to leverage every solution available to them, from software to hardware. This way, they keep their data and networks safe. Among these ways, the Identity Access Management tool is something that keeps the data and network safe and secure.

Shall we start with Top 10 Best IAM Tools – Identity Access Management (Pros Cons).

What Are IAM Tools?

First of all, Identity and Access Management tool or IAM is a software that makes accessing data and applications securely and effortlessly. Additionally, it ensures that only authorized employees access your business’s sensitive information. Suppose your accountant team needs access to certain information that your marketing does not. Basically IAM tools provide role based access that keeps your company’s resources safe.

IAM tools usually perform two functions.

  • They confirm that the user, device, and application are who they say they are. They do it via cross referencing the credentials they provide against what the system has on files.
  • After the confirmation of credentials, the software provides only necessary access.

Benefits of IAM Solutions

If you use IAM Solutions, you tend to expect the following advantages:

  • Less risk of data breaches.
  • Provides access control that drills down to individual applications, APIs, and services.
  • Gives better user experience with features like SSO and customized interfaces.
  • Offers seamless cross organization onboarding, even when the system in not in place.
  • Securing an organization creates brand trust, making your business compliant, reliable, and trustworthy.
  • Provide cloud based access and control over users and applications located anywhere in the world.
  • Improvised control over user account accesses and privileges.

Top 10 Identity Access Management (IAM) Tools

1. Twingate

First on the list of Top 10 Best IAM Tools – Identity Access Management is Twingate. With the help of Twingate, fast growing companies effortlessly implement a Zero Trust secure access solution without compromising security, usability, or performance. Besides, it believes that the phrase “Work From Anywhere” should just work. In addition, secures access platform replaces legacy VPNs with modern Identity First Networking Solutions. Also, comprises enterprise grade security with consumer grade user experience. You can set it up in just 15 minutes and integrate it with all central cloud and identity providers.

Pros of Twingate

  • Continuously implements a contemporary zero trust network, which is more secure and maintainable than VPNs.
  • Streamlined and simplified admin experience.
  • Automatic segregation of business/personal traffic.
  • Provides resource level control, restricting hackers from accessing your entire network when one user is compromised.
  • Centrally manages user access to internal apps, regardless of on premise or in the cloud.
  • Simple and snappy user experience.
  • Resolves DNS requests locally on the remote network, so the usual hostnames and IP addresses work.

Cons of Twingate

  • Not suitable for organizations with stringent security requirements.
  • Provides only premium integration and consulting service.
  • No access control at the port level.
  • Does not provide Linux GUI client at this time.

2. Ping Identity

Ping Identity is another leader in the IAM domain. Certainly, it is an ideal choice for an organization that wants to enhance the security of its cloud based assets without compromising on the customers’ UI. It also controls access to on premise and hybrid systems. Using Ping Identity, mobile, tablet, laptop, or desktop, you can authenticate any device. It is the best IAM tool to integrate with other IAM solutions, including Active Directory, Azure AD, Oracle, CA Technologies, and IBM.

Pros of Ping Identity

  • Supports SSO, MFA, and authentication enforcement.
  • Applicable for on premise, cloud, or hybrid environments.
  • Option to manually write code if the notification fails
  • Instant Notification.
  • Multi device login option.
  • Cross platform application

Cons of Ping Identity

  • Only focuses on Enterprise level companies. It is not appropriate for smaller networks.
  • Notifications require internet. Could be a possible issue when there is congestion in the network.
  • Doesn’t support all workflow and hooks.
  • More functionalities should be available on prem like PingID.

3. InfraSOS

Pros of InfraSOS

InfraSOS is a unified AD, Teams, Exchange, Microsoft 365, and Azure AD reporting solution to simplify tasks of managing users in Active Directory and Office 365. Consequently, you acquire 200 built in reports that include reports on inactive user accounts, Microsoft 365 licenses, and users’ last logon times. It also enables you to build a custom workflow for ticketing and compliance, automate AD tasks, and delegate tasks to technicians.

  • Works and integrates with other Microsoft products and on premise AD environments.
  • Highly scalable and can manage thousands of users’ accounts.
  • Streamlines new hire and termination processes.
  • Helps generate report logs to assist with AD cleanup.
  • No onprem infrastructure required, everything is run via our SaaS platform.

Cons of InfraSOS

  • Only provides reporting via our SaaS portal at the moment.
  • Only available in English

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4. SailPoint Identity IQ

SailPoint Identity IQ is the forerunner of IAM solutions. Companies rely on this software because of its sturdy identity governance and provisioning capabilities. Equally, you can use this solution as a stand alone, on premise, or Identity as a service solution. Moreover, with the help of IdentityIQ, you can have a long list of applications to manage access to them. It also controls data stores.

Pros of SailPoint Identity IQ

  • Provides a good identity governance view into your organization.
  • Integrates with numerous enterprise platforms.
  • Highly customizable and easy to navigate dashboards.
  • Easy to connect to our internal application to extract user entitlements for managers certifications.
  • On boarding and Off boarding process is so easy.
  • Secures and manages access to critical applications and resources across the group.

Cons of SailPoint Identity IQ

  • Requires a considerable amount of customization to get it to work.
  • Does not scale well for large environments or when data is not 100% clean.
  • In a hybrid model where application automation is not fully rolled out, means that there can be inconsistency in the process, which leads to duplicate accounts.
  • Auditing and logging capabilities are limited.

5. Cisco Duo Security

Acquisioned Duo Security in 2018, Cisco provides a sturdy presence in both IAM and Zero Trust. Its Tetration Microsegmentation Security, SD Access Fabric, and Identity Services NAC Solutions make Cisco the only solution to provide IAM, micro segmentation, zero trust, and network access control.

Pros of Cisco Duo Security

  • It is fast with almost no delay between triggering the MFA request and receiving the notification on an iPhone.
  • Its products contain CLI, which is effortless to use and understand.
  • In addition to the added MFA layer, a simple, 4-digit passcode can be added to the authentication request.
  • Protects sensitive data.
  • Users can use a variety of authentication methods.

Cons of Cisco Duo Security

  • Sometimes push notification takes very long time.
  • It hangs frequently on low bandwidth.
  • Since its GUI is written in Java, ADSM software configuring ASA can misbehave.
  • Default data that is sent by the app may be to invasive.

6. JumpCloud

JumpCloud provides you with single sign on access, making the process of accessing resources effortlessly and securely. It is appropriate for on premise and cloud applications, macOS, Linux networks and infrastructure, and Windows. It also provides reports and insights to log user activity. This way, the security team can see access attempts that might indicate an identity has compromised. Moreover, it offers remote management to enable the security team to address issues with the help of the user’s identity.

Pros of JumpCloud

  • Scope includes all Operating Systems for MDM.
  • One centralised platform for easy management.
  • Easy UI navigation on the platform.
  • Run scripts on Windows Servers.
  • Good support team, constant updates and excellent user management.

Cons of JumpCloud

  • The reporting on JumpCloud requires API.
  • Patching of applications as they only can patch OS
  • SSO pre-configured settings are not always correct.
  • Does not support domain name change.
  • Not always easy to authenticate, authenticator needs to be downloaded as a separate app.

7. Oracle Identity Cloud Service

Oracle’s Identity Cloud Service is an IAM solution that provides unrestricted cloud service catering to the needs of businesses ranging from data storage and networking services to application testing space, etc. With the help of IDCS, you can acquire better, centralized control of users’ access to their local digital assets, PaaS, and SaaS.

Pros of Oracle Identity Cloud Service

  • It handles a large volume of traffic effortlessly.
  • Ease of implementation and maintenance.
  • It has smooth user provisioning and reconciliation.
  • LDAP based synchronization with Microsoft Active Directory with minimum lag between the directories.
  • The ability to automate the access management, it is a very complete solution, and it’s easy to use.

Cons of Oracle Identity Cloud Service

  • Customization is difficult and straight forward to implement new enhancements. 
  • Needs customization to access several features.
  • Understanding the event flow is difficult.
  • It’s quite expensive to buy the license for small businesses.

8. Okta

Okta is access management, authentication, and single sign on. It has a simple and easy to manage SaaS based approach, which helps you implement IAM and zero trust without much complexity. Moreover, it provides behavioral tracking and products with numerous authentication options like multi factor, biometric, and single sign on. It is one of the effortless paths to zero trust and advanced identity management.

Pros of Okta

  • Customised management of user roles and mapping for authentication.
  • Supports multiple authentication types.
  • Help organizations adhere to compliance standards.
  • It can connect to third party apps and systems that enhance security and user experience.
  • Allows secure saving of passwords and centralising the work tools.

Cons of Okta

  • On premise app authentication requires expensive hardware.
  • Sometimes automatic web fill doesn’t work.
  • One time integration effort is high for the initial setup.
  • Okta times out pretty quick making us login multiple times in the day.

9. Microsoft Azure Identity Management

With the help of Microsoft Azure Identity Management, you can protect your data and application in both cloud and hybrid environments. They have multiple identity management products to find what exactly your business requires. You can also classify and label data to make it effortless to assign permissions based on users’ roles. Since it tracks activity on shared data and applications, you know who is accessing each file.

Pros Microsoft Azure Identity Management

  • It simply secures data and applications and even provides limited access.
  • Provides remote access for identity management.
  • Uses the same format and similar permission structure as other Microsoft products
  • It can manage thousands of user accounts.
  • Integrate with other Microsoft products and on premise AD environments.
  • Allows central management of users

Cons of Microsoft Azure Identity Management

  • It needs expert maintenance and management that excludes SMBs.
  • Complexity, especially for users not familiar with the “Microsoft way” of doing things
  • Integration with Mac OS isn’t as smooth as with Windows clients.

10. CyberArk

Last on the list of 10 Best IAM Tools – Identity Access Management is CyberArk. Achieved from Idatptive in 2020, CyberArk provides SSO, MFA, and Identity Lifecycle Management in your workforce, endpoints, third party, consumer users, and mobile devices. Its behavioural analytics sets a valuable baseline that triggers alerts and access changes whenever it detects abnormal behaviour. Its capabilities, ease of deployment, value, and support make these IAM solutions solid.

Pros of CyberArk

  • Makes it easy to create and enforce custom credential polices
  • Integrates with On premise and Cloud based data centers
  • Provides SSO and Adaptive MFA.
  • It is easy to identify systems and monitor their status from the interface.
  • Provides Biometric Authentication.
  • Good reporting and troubleshooting features

Cons of CyberArk

  • Although it is an excellent choice for enterprises, and does not come at a considerable price.
  • Its behavioral analytics tools are slightly complex for non enterprise clients.
  • Does not support HA vault
  • It has a lot of hardware/software requirements for initial setup, which might make roll out timeline little lengthy.

Thank you for reading 10 Best IAM Tools – Identity Access Management. We will summarize now. 

Top 10 Best IAM Tools - Identity Access Management Conclusion

To summarize, Identification and access management capabilities are essential in the increasing frequency and severity of both cyberattacks on businesses. Tightly coupled with API management software, it has become a mission critical part of any business model.

Good data management is the key to success in any industry, and you cannot have good data management without IAM software. An Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution is a set of features allowing system administrators to protect sensitive data.

Picture of Edyta Wisniowska

Edyta Wisniowska

I am a Linux and Windows enthusiast and cyber security researcher. Currently working as InfraSOS technical writer and content manager.

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