Cloud-Based Identity Management Leader Doubles Down with Partners Slalom Consulting, Softchoice, Intellinet and Convergent Computing to Accelerate Customer Success Across Microsoft Environments
San Francisco, CA - July 10, 2014 – Okta today announced an enhanced integration to Microsoft Office 365. This new offering enables enterprises to quickly and securely deploy Office 365 and eliminates the need for multiple on-premises tools and software products to connect the Microsoft Cloud with Active Directory and other services in the enterprise. Users can now easily access all Microsoft offerings, as well as any other application or service, through one secure, cloud-based entry point wherever and whenever they need to get work done.
"Okta is at the center of the dramatic shift IT is making to cloud and mobile architectures, and Office 365 has become a key application driving that move," said Eric Berg, chief product officer at Okta. "Our ‘Works with Office 365’ integration provides the most comprehensive and lowest TCO solution for integrating Office 365 to Active Directory or any LDAP directory and can be used to manage identity across all Microsoft applications, whether on-premises or cloud, in addition to other vendor offerings. As a Silver Certified Microsoft Partner with a growing ecosystem of Microsoft system integrators, Okta offers the identity solution of choice for companies everywhere to streamline their move to Office 365."
Significant Benefits for IT and End Users Alike
Okta’s enhanced integration to Office 365 builds on its ability to centrally manage and maintain a single identity profile for any user across any combination of on-premises or cloud-based systems in real time.
As a single solution that offers significantly lower TCO than services offered through Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), Azure Active Directory Sync, and in many cases, Microsoft Identity Manager, it also provides greater security, flexibility and IT efficiencies by eliminating the need and overhead associated with maintaining identity profiles on a “per app” basis.
The integration enables organizations including Seton Hall University, Post Foods LLC, Workday, HomeAway, Enterasys, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and Colfax Corporation to tie everything back to a “single source of truth” for identity, with profiles mastered in either an on-premises directory or in Okta’s Universal Directory. Additional benefits include:
- Automatically managed user licenses across Office 365 applications, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online, increasing license usage efficiency;
- Zero downtime and instant failover for Active Directory integration to ensure continuous efficient operation without requiring IT to manage uptime;
- Real-time provisioning and de-provisioning of user accounts and group memberships in Azure Active Directory, with rich profile synchronization to easily ensure employees receive access when needed and are automatically removed if necessary;
- Support for connecting multiple untrusted Active Directory domains to a single tenant of Office 365, enabling large enterprises or companies going through mergers and acquisitions to easily add all users without changing their directory architecture; and
- A secure, application-agnostic identity service that can be leveraged just as easily and deliver the same set of benefits for non-Microsoft applications.
"In moving our user mailboxes to Office 365, we realized the immediate need for cloud-based identity management to reap the agility and business continuity benefits the cloud has to offer. After exploring several options, including hosting Microsoft Active Directory/ADFS in the public cloud, we selected Okta for its simplicity and reliability,” said Stephen G. Landry, CIO, Seton Hall University. “Implementation was an absolute breeze. Almost immediately, we enabled single sign-on to our full suite of Office 365 applications, including OneDrive and Lync, as well as other hosted applications, such as our campus portal and Blackboard LMS. Not only is Okta a great convenience for our students and faculty, but it allows most instructional work to take place fully in the cloud, ensuring that our core business of teaching and learning can continue independent of campus technology services."
Partnership with Microsoft and Leading Microsoft SIs
As a Silver Certified Microsoft Partner for Identity and Access Management, Microsoft has verified Okta’s full support for Office 365, including Integrated Windows Authentication for access to web applications, in the “Works with Office 365” program to ensure customer success. Okta also commits to coordinating with Microsoft and resolving any issues for Office 365 customers using Okta.
In addition to Okta’s partnership with Microsoft, Okta has partnered with leading Microsoft system integrators, including Slalom Consulting, Softchoice, Intellinet and Convergent Computing.
"We work with hundreds of companies using Microsoft solutions and need to be able to offer them an identity solution that easily and securely connects on-premises software like SharePoint and Active Directory, or cloud-based applications like Office 365 and Azure Active Directory. As an Okta partner, we’re able to offer our customers a complete solution that does just that,” said Rich Dorfman, VP Sales and Services, Convergent Computing. “Okta is the perfect complement to Microsoft’s cloud and on-premises solutions, empowering IT to worry less about managing multiple user stores and focus more on creating efficient, productive and secure workflows for all users."
Find out more about using Okta for Office 365: https://www.okta.com/office365/
Become an Okta Solution Provider: https://www.okta.com/wpc/
Visit the Okta for Microsoft Community: https://community.okta.com/groups/microsoft
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