Washington Shifts to the Cloud

Check out our roundup of some of last week’s most interesting cloud-related news:

Identity as a Service (IDaaS)

For his February column for Windows IT Pro, Sean Deuby turned to identity predictions from the most recent Gartner Identity and Access Management (IAM) Summit. One of the biggest takeaways for Deuby was the way enterprises are evolving to integrate Identity as a Service providers to Active Directory functionality:

“Microsoft provides Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) for on-premises cloud identity, but enterprises are also looking at a new breed of identity applications (e.g., Identity as a Service—IDaaS) that hook into AD to provide the same functionality.

Gartner’s position is that a complete IAM solution will always be a combination of native Microsoft applications, such as AD and perhaps AD FS for cloud identity or FIM for metadirectory and certificate services, and non-Microsoft apps such as AD bridges for UNIX clients, virtual directories for tying in other identity sources, privileged access management tools for governance, and lifecycle management tools to manage the digital identities themselves.”

Washington to the cloud

Here’s a story that we’ve watched develop for a while now: the federal government’s adoption of cloud technology for internal uses. Last week, salesforce.com announced that the decision to bring IT services to the cloud in Washington has been made. This isn’t a surprise. What’s interesting to note, however, is the government’s stress that a private cloud does not mean a secure cloud. Security standards must be met at the vendor level.