Three Key Takeaways From Edgile’s Recent Webinar “The Power Behind the SailPoint and Microsoft Partnership”

Authored by: Gretchen Wichmann, Managing Director at Edgile, Identity Practice Leader

Identity programs sit at the center of the modern security strategy. Developing the identity strategy and successfully running identity programs—not projects, but actual, robust programs—remains a top priority for many organizations. This leaves program execution an active assignment in today’s dynamic enterprise environment that includes a growing number of people, apps, digital transformation and regulations.

During a recent webinar, experts from Edgile (SailPoint Admiral Delivery Partner and 2020 Microsoft Security System Integrator of the Year) sat down with industry experts from SailPoint, Microsoft, and a financial services customer. The panel discussed the customer’s recent IAM journey during a roundtable, before taking a deeper dive into the integrated solution that was implemented.

Here are 3 key takeaways from the event:

1. Securing all identities – internal and external – is the essential first step for a Zero Trust strategy.

One of the key items that we discussed during the executive panel was how internal identities create a security and management challenge: “Who has access to what at a given point in time?” We need to make sure least privilege principles apply and user access certifications are an important element. Provisioning/de-provisioning and automation become a key to ensure timely removal of access. Organizations need to think about overall Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) so only the right users have access to the right applications. RBAC allows organizations to manage their users’ access based on job responsibilities.

The external identity problem is equally vexing, but for different reasons. The core principle of least privilege is still essential, but with a seemingly endless list of vendors, distributors, suppliers, contractors and customers accessing sensitive enterprise data directly via VPNs, the cloud, mobile, IoT and remote sites, the external identity solution must be able to scale.

As organizations transition to a cloud-based strategy for their infrastructure, they are focusing on how to protect their systems while maintaining the accessibility of both their internal and external users. Speaking to Victoria Cantos of Inter-American Development Bank about the bank’s journey to modern identity management during the roundtable, her organization’s main concerns were “how to protect the information that is now in the cloud and how to facilitate access to the system for both personnel and our partners.” This is when they turned to Microsoft and SailPoint.

1. Top organizations are turning to a holistic, integrated solution to tackle identity problems. 

In working with CISOs across client organizations, we see that leading enterprises are extending their investments in Microsoft, receiving tremendous value from existing and new security and compliance capabilities in the Microsoft product suite—specifically in the context of identity. Executives at these enterprises are leveraging security controls for access—both internal and external. Microsoft has extended their commitment in this area with a focus not just on internal identities but also external identities, solving B2B and B2C use cases for employees, contractors, customers, partners, devices, IoT and vendors.

With enterprises using products such as Microsoft Azure External Identities and Azure AD for access management, single sign-on and robust multifactor authentication, SailPoint is needed to implement identity security, automated lifecycle management, access certifications and access requests. In short, Microsoft delivers access and SailPoint secures that identity’s access.

1. Combining Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory with SailPoint’s industry-leading Identity Security solution delivers best-in-class results.

Combining these solutions from SailPoint and Microsoft brings a wide range of benefits, including:

• Enhanced security and compliance for Microsoft Azure Active Directory with AI-driven Identity
• Reducing time and friction for integrating internal and external identities
• Making it simple for users to bring their own identities (BYOI)
• Automating the provisioning of cloud and on-premises applications
• Automatically terminating access for most guest users when those privileges are no longer needed
• Certifying the access of Azure external identities through SailPoint as well as making life easier for administrators and users by letting admins directly invite a user to use an application without creating a ticket.

To learn more about the combined solution offerings from Edgile, SailPoint and Microsoft, watch the following on-demand replay.