Eric, the CEO of Strata Identity and an enterprise cloud identity expert, highlights the importance of updating core infrastructure systems in organizations. Legacy technologies, such as Microsoft Active Directory (AD), can become a liability as organizations move towards the cloud, requiring refactoring or rewriting of applications to work with modern identity systems. This migration poses challenges, especially for large organizations with hundreds of apps that need to be rewritten to work with new identity providers.
Moving from AD to a cloud identity system offers enhanced security capabilities, such as multifactor authentication and passwordless options. However, not all apps can be migrated to the cloud, leading to a complex co-existence of AD and cloud identity providers. To address these challenges, an identity orchestration approach is recommended. This approach creates an abstraction layer that bridges incompatible cloud IDPs and AD, eliminating the need to rewrite applications and enabling a unified security policy management across distributed systems.
An effective identity orchestration framework should support legacy and modern protocols, including Microsoft protocols like ADFS and SAML, as well as modern protocols like OpenID Connect. It should also work with Microsoft technologies and provide capabilities for extending advanced security controls to on-premises apps that cannot be migrated. By bridging AD and cloud IDPs, organizations can seamlessly manage authentication, access control, and other identity-related functions.
However, implementing identity orchestration comes with challenges, such as cross-platform and multicloud support. Since each IDP platform is proprietary, most identity orchestration platforms only support the vendor’s systems, creating a new form of lock-in. To address this, organizations should select a platform that supports open standards and can bridge incompatible IDPs. A controlled rollout of users and applications from AD to the new cloud IDP can help identify and address any unexpected outcomes.
As organizations transition to modern cloud IDPs, overcoming challenges without rewriting applications is possible with a strategic approach to identity orchestration. By carefully planning the migration process and ensuring compatibility with open standards, organizations can successfully navigate the shift towards modern cloud identity systems. Through these efforts, the security, efficiency, and agility of organizations can be enhanced while maintaining compatibility with legacy systems.
