Securing data and complying with the growing number of associated local, regional, and international regulations are two of the biggest challenges facing most modern organizations as they become increasingly reliant on complex IT environments.
Key to achieving both data security and regulatory compliance is the ability to manage identities effectively and enforce policy-based access controls to ensure only authorized people and things have access to IT systems and data under the correct circumstances.
This has become increasingly challenging with the proliferation of digital identities, applications, security threats, and data security compliance requirements.
The ability for organizations to ensure that only the right people have access to the right resources at the right time, and to be able to prove it – is essential. This not only provides the foundation for good cybersecurity, but also for effective regulatory compliance.
Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)is a core component of Identity and Access Management (IAM) infrastructure and refers to integrated solutions that combine Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) and Access Governance. IGA helps to cut costs, increase security, improve compliance, and give users access to the IT resources they need.
Depending on maturity in terms of IAM, some organizations may need to bolster their capabilities in ILM while others need to focus on Access Governance. But most organizations are looking for a comprehensive IGA solution, that combines traditional User Access Provisioning (UAP) and Identity and Access Governance (IAG).
In general, IGA solutions support the consolidation of identity information across multiple repositories and systems of record in an organization's IT environment. The identity information including user accounts, associated access entitlements and other identity attributes are collected from across the connected target systems for correlation and management of individual identities, user groups as well as roles through a centralized administration console.
Comprehensive solutions typically include end-to-end identity life-cycle management, access entitlement management, workflow and policy management, role management, access certification, SoD risk analysis, reporting and access intelligence, and Access Intelligence for business-related insights to support effective decision making and potentially enhance governance.
In response to the demand for comprehensive solutions, the IGA market is growing and maturing, although it continues to evolve. Organizations should therefore ensure that they thoroughly understand their needs and how the market can best support those needs with innovative technologies and approaches.
As part of the evolution of IGA products, identity and access intelligence has become a key capability, as has automation aimed at reducing management workload. There is also an increasing focus on interoperability with other related products and services.
“IGA is essential to business as a strategic approach to ensure overall IT security and regulatory compliance.”
— Nitish Deshpande, Research Analyst, KuppingerCole
Because we understand the importance of Identity Governance and Administration, and because we are committed to helping your business succeed, KuppingerCole has a great deal of content available in a variety of formats.
Research
A good place to start your exploration of the topic of IGA is this newly-published Leadership Compass on Identity Governance and Administration. This report provides an overview of and insights into the IGA market, including core capabilities, that will help find the products that can meet your organization’s needs for a successful IGA deployment.
For an overview of IGA, what it is, reasons why it is important for businesses, common use cases, and recommendation for a successful IGA implementation, have a look at this Insight entitled: Identity Governance and Administration – a Policy-Based Primer for Your Company.
Learn about the market for Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) and how it fits into the context of IGA by reading this Leadership Compass on Identity as a Service (IDaaS - IGA), and find out what questions to ask vendors, criteria to select your vendor, and the necessary conditions to meet the security requirements of a growing SaaS portfolio by reading these Buyer's Compasses on Identity Governance & Administration and more specifically on IDaaS IGA.
Discover which IGA solutions come with good out-of-the-box support for integration with ITSM by reading this Market Compass report on IGA Solutions for ServiceNow Infrastructures.
Advisories
If you would like to rate the current state of your IAM/IGA projects and programs, have a look at this Advisory Note on KuppingerCole’s Maturity Level Matrix for IAM.
Discover the key reasons for aligning ITSM with IGA systems and how this is best achieved by reading this Leadership Brief on Recommendations for aligning ITSM with IAM/IGA.
As the number and types of digital identities proliferate in the digital era, the need for an effective IGA capability has never been greater. This leadership brief outlines the Typical Risks and Pitfalls for IGA Projects.
Video/Audio
For a perspective on the right approach to IGA deployment models, how to reduce complexity in role entitlement management, how to improve access reviews and recertification, and how to keep IGA up to date, have a look at this KC Live presentation on Rethinking IGA.
Learn more about IGA capabilities for identity-centric security and get insights on reducing risk, strengthening compliance, and improving efficiency with a modern approach by having a look at this panel discussion on IGA for Successfully Managed Identities.
Just about everything, including IGA, is moving to the cloud. To find out how to move to a cloud solution to strengthen your identity security, achieve governance and a Zero Trust approach, and get compliant, watch this presentation entitled: IGA in the Cloud without Compromise.
Following on from that, discover why companies are choosing enterprise IGA SaaS platforms over on-prem solutions in this presentation on Why on-premise IGA is the New Legacy, and find our more about the link between IGA and Zero Trust in this presentation on Modern IGA Capabilities & Zero Trust Identity.
This relationship between IGA and Zero Trust is explored further in this panel discussion entitled: No Zero Trust Without Strong IAM - What You Need in IGA and Beyond for Enabling Zero Trust.
Continue your exploration of the concept of modern IGA with this presentation entitled: If it’s not Simple, Scalable and Agile, it’s not Modern IGA.
Gain insights into how to implement an IGA system at a finance company by having a look at this presentation on IGA in the Financial Industry.
Whether you employ on-prem or SaaS technology to meet your identity provisioning and governance needs, find out the obligations and best practices for securing your processes and your infrastructure in this presentation entitled: IGA Under Fire? Requirements and Essential Best Practices for Protecting the Keys to your Kingdom.
Blogs
Concise and incisive perspectives by our analyst can be found in their blog posts, such as this on IGA in a World of Zero Trust, and this guest blog post on the 5 Key Benefits of Marrying IGA and ITSM.
Webinars
As mentioned above, IGA solutions are becoming more “intelligent”. To find out more about how to get the most out of this type of innovation, have a look at this webinar entitled: Mitigate Risks, Cut Cost, and Achieve Compliance With AI-Driven IGA.
Finding the right IDaaS solution with a focus on IGA can be challenging. Find out how to tackle this problem by watching this webinar on Understanding the IGA-Focused Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) Market.
If you find staying on top of user roles and access rights in a hybrid IT environment challenging, have a look at this webinar entitled Effective Identity Access Governance in Hybrid SAP Environments for an in-depth discussion of modern IAM challenges and solutions, especially in the context of traditional SAP environments and SAP Cloud applications such as Ariba and SuccessFactors.
Whitepapers
Learn more about Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS), and how it could be a useful component to your overall IGA strategy in this Whitepaper on IDaaS-based IGA.
Find out how to plan for IAM modernization and the role of IGA to ITSM integration, in this Whitepaper entitled: A Different Way to IGA: Leveraging the ServiceNow Infrastructure.
A trend compelling IGA modernization is the need for an Identity driven security model due to identity silos created by rapid cloud adoption. An Identity Fabric provides the agility and the integration support for what organizations already have while allowing organizations to move ahead at their own speed. Find out more in this Whitepaper on Modular Decentralized Identity Architecture.
Tech Investment
Organizations investing in technologies to support effective IGA strategies, can have a look at some of the related technology solutions that we have evaluated:
- Kapstone Autonomous IGA
- UNITY: IGA Modernization Framework by Persistent
- Clear Skye IGA: IGA on the ServiceNow NOW platform
- Saviynt Security Manager for Enterprise IGA
- ZertID from Sysintegra
- Tenfold Security
- Omada Identity Cloud
- SailPoint Access Risk Management
- Simeio Identity Orchestrator
- Hitachi ID Bravura Privilege
- One Identity Manager On Demand