Growing success leads to an infrastructure crossroads
As part of ROLLER’s scaling and security effort, they brought on Sean Fernandez as CIO in mid-2018. “I took on a lot of the responsibilities for security, infrastructure, and just rebuilding some of the components that were probably built in a rapid environment,” says Fernandez. “Really picking apart certain components and then focusing on making it scale and reducing the burden on engineers and the operational staff.”
Identity management was a critical part of their strategy to protect both their clients and their clients’ customers. “Security is always of utmost concern to us as engineers, but also for ensuring that our clients are using best-of-breed security practices,” says Brodie.
Previously, ROLLER had been using an open-source Identity solution. As operations became more complex, the free software could no longer handle their growing security needs. Brodie knew they had a decision to make: “If we continued using our existing solution and maintaining it, we would have to rip it out and try to spin up our own infrastructure. The cost and implementation of that was definitely a concern."
Instead, ROLLER decided to see what else was out there.
Easier, more secure growth with Okta Customer Identity Cloud
ROLLER chose Okta Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0, to manage their identity infrastructure instead of trying to revamp their current system themselves. “A key reason we decided to go with Customer Identity Cloud is that it's ultimately going to save us time and money,” says Brodie. “It allows us to focus on our core features and give us and our clients peace of mind that we're using the best of breed, and it's being managed by highly skilled Okta engineers.”
As they grew, ROLLER became a more attractive target for malicious actors, and authentication was one of the most vulnerable processes. Customer Identity Cloud helps protect them, their clients, and their clients’ customers. “We wanted to be confident in our platform across all aspects including security without investing in a large security team or retraining the resources we have. It made good sense to go with experts in the area,” says Fernandez.
ROLLER really values Customer Identity Cloud’s customizability, the ability to stay on top of security trends and threats, and Okta’s easy-to-use APIs. “A key thing we really liked about Customer Identity Cloud is our ability to customize the user interface,” says Brodie. “That was really critical for us.”
An external security team at a fraction of the cost
ROLLER continues to expand internationally and diversify their offerings. “We're continuing to add more and more applications that will give our clients, and their customers, the best experience possible,” says Brodie. “We've got a foothold in North America, so we're going to continue to push aggressively into the North American market.”
Brodie believes that outsourcing their Identity needs to Okta allows them to stay focused on their core mission of providing customized POS solutions for their clients: “When you can offload to a well-constructed solution or service that you can trust, it just makes sense to do that, so we can then focus on providing the best solutions to our users, which is the custom work.”
This not only saves them time but also a great deal of money. Fernandez ties the savings to the amount it would cost to run their own in-house security detail: “Three engineers working full-time as security experts. From the building, to maintenance, implementation, to constant investment in keeping things up to date… including auditing the open-source software and solutions we were previously using and doing continuous pen testing and external pen testing and audits for compliance... creating an authentication solution in-house was going to be at least 10 times the cost of just using Customer Identity Cloud.”
As ROLLER rolls into the future, Okta will continue to support their growing international infrastructure. “Customer Identity Cloud is a cornerstone of our global platform,” says Brodie.
About Customer
ROLLER is a leading all-in-one software suite for attractions, entertainment and leisure venues. ROLLER’s mission is to help venues grow sales and improve the guest experience through its innovative market leading modules. Comprised of Ticketing, Point-of-Sale, CRM, Waivers, Gift Cards, Email, Entry Management, Checkouts and more, ROLLER offers venues a whole-of-business solution to help them grow. ROLLER is a modern cloud-based offering with thousands of users across 20 countries.
