How Identity-as-a-Service transforms mobile management?

• By offering centralised and secured frameworks to manage identities, IDaaS gives organisations all the weapons necessary to combat very difficult MDM situations.
• The IDaaS and mobile device management tool together provide an environment that is agile yet secure.
• IDaaS will become one of the most important foundations for ongoing effective and secure mobile device management in a workspace where mobile devices take center stage.

In the age of digitalism and cloud technology, there has been increasing realisation and understanding among enterprises about the need to seamlessly manage identities, more especially in the scope of mobile device management (MDM). The work of mobile devices goes beyond communication. They have become extensions of a person’s digital self where work, communication, and even social interaction take place.

Thus, the management of these devices requires even stronger frameworks for security and user accessibility and operational efficiency. This is where identity as a service comes as a savior for organisations to make mobile device management simpler, secure, and user-friendly.

What is IDaaS?

Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) is a cloud-based service that manages user identities and provides application and system access based on identifications. IDaaS solutions can manage specific identity functions, including authentication, provisioning, and identity management through a mix of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and federation services.

Organisations can scale their identity management capabilities rapidly through the cloud infrastructure while streamlining their operational risks and costs without the need to purchase and maintain on-premise hardware and software.

Bridging IDaaS with MDM

MDM and IDaaS come together to form an integrated environment or framework for managing user identity in conjunction with the mobile devices used by these users. This linkage assures that the correct users have accessibility to the requisite resources at the most appropriate time. There are several ways in which IDaaS facilitates MDM by simplifying most processes:

1. Centralised Access Control:  This is one of the major advantages of having IDaaS. It allows organisations to synchronise all aspects of identity within a single platform. The efficiency of centralised access enable IT admins to provision new users, revoke access whenever needed, manage roles and permissions associated with a wide variety of devices and applications. Centralised control also minimises unauthorised access and enforces policies all across mobile platforms for better security.
2. Improved Safety: Mobile devices are always susceptible to security breaches, and this primarily happens when employees connect with a company’s server through a mobile device. An example of this is IDaaS, which increase the security aspect in the event of an occurrence of multi-factor authentication and other security mechanisms that would validate a user identity beyond username or password confirmation.
3. Onboarding and Offboarding: Bringing a person onboard would require allowing that person to have access to the applications needed for work; for someone being removed, it would also allow an employee to move out of the organisation, thus making the employee deactivated immediately while reopening their accounts and assigning roles. IDaaS automates these workflows to immediately deactivate an account, improve efficiency through minimum downtime, and enforce tighter security measures.
4. User Experience Enrichment: Such an aspect of MDM is log-on diversity for an assortment of apps and systems. IDaaS improves the user experience as it allows the user to have one-time authentication for accessing an unlimited number of authorised applications throughout devices by a svelte single sign-on. Not just in terms of user simplicity, it will also motivate users to comply with the prescribed security protocols.
5.  Compliance with Regulations and Reporting: There is more than one area in which the IDaaS into MDM can be useful for an organisation to comply with standards. By keeping a verified database of user access and identity attributes, organisations can monitor and report user activity, both of which may be required in compliance audits and under federal data protection acts such as GDPR and HIPAA. This type of compliance would contribute to risk management and prove accountability to stakeholders.
6. Management of Devices and Applications: The IDaaS facilities can also handle mobile policy management for the applications installed on mobile devices. For example; data encryption can be easily applied and set as a requirement from any remote place by the IT department, before carrying out whitelisting for ala software that is supposed to be installed on company devices. These measures improve security to a large extent within the organisation and make it comply with the corporate governance regulations.

IDaaS providers

The IDaaS market is highly fragmented with several providers adopting a unique approach with special features and integrations tailoring them to different businesses. Some of the most prominent names in this field are Okta, Microsoft Azure Active Directory, and Auth0. These providers focus on either large enterprises or small businesses by providing extensive applications for third-party integrations.