Integrate identity as a third-party service

5.3 Integrate identity as a third-party service

• On-premise
• Cloud
• Hybrid

IDaaS or Identity as a Service is a new idea, where we outsource our Identity Management to a third party.  It is a single point of failure.

We can categorize IDaaS into three types

• On Premise
  
  
  • An on-premise system is one that is hosted by the organization.  Examples include LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory.  AD is the most popular system in use.
    
    
  • When our applications are all hosted locally, then an on-premise system makes the most sense.  If our applications are in the cloud, then we need a way to have our on-premise system connect to them in order to provide authentication.
    
    
• Cloud
  
  
  • A cloud-based system is hosted by a third party, off site.
    
    
  • When we have many cloud applications, then having a cloud system makes sense.  The cloud-based system must be able to connect to the cloud-based applications.
    
    
• Hybrid
  
  
  • A hybrid system is one that is partially hosted by the organization and partially in the cloud.
    
    
  • When the organization has some local applications and some cloud-based applications, then a hybrid system is a good idea.
    
    
  • The two systems must be able to sync their data in real time.
    
    
  • A good example is Microsoft Azure Active Directory