Free Service Enables ISVs to Accelerate Customer Deployments, Provides a Clear Path Into the Enterprise for Cloud ISVs and Developers Everywhere
San Francisco, CA – September 17, 2012 — Okta, the leading on-demand identity and access management service, today announced several ISV partnerships and a broader partner program that offers free Microsoft Active Directory integration for a growing number of cloud ISVs and application developers. Based on the same technology that powers Okta’s popular Directory Integration Edition product, the free service provides secure, robust integration to Active Directory for enterprise customers and helps Okta’s ISV partners overcome security objections that often prohibit the broader scale deployment of their applications within the enterprise.
Unlocking Secure Enterprise Deployments of Cloud Applications
Many enterprises manage and control employee access to on-premises applications through Active Directory, with their cloud applications hosted outside of the corporate firewall and beyond reach. This forces IT organizations to either limit the scale of a cloud application deployment or attempt to develop a custom integration between the cloud applications and Active Directory. These integrations are often costly, fragile and difficult to maintain. As a result, many cloud ISVs have more limited deployments within the enterprise or experience higher levels of customer dissatisfaction because they don’t solve this security problem for their customers.
“Many of our customers are using both cloud and on-premises applications, so it's critical that we help them solve identity challenges across both environments. This is essential to ensure secure access at all times across all devices and users,” said Grant Peterson, CTO, DocuSign. “Our customers rely on Active Directory, yet they've struggled with how to attain that same level of security and control across the cloud applications their employees use. Okta's Active Directory integration service easily solves this problem, allowing our customers to integrate DocuSign through Okta. It couldn't be simpler for our customers – and they're able to increase adoption of DocuSign to drive deeper ROI in their organizations.”
Okta’s free Directory Integration service allows ISVs to address these issues head-on and turn a deficit within the enterprise into a strength by leveraging one of the industry’s most widely deployed and tested Active Directory integrations for cloud applications. The service not only allows IT to integrate an application into their corporate directory, but also provides employees with seamless, secure access to that application – no additional passwords required.
“Okta’s Active Directory integration offering addresses the need for enterprises to simplify identity management when using cloud applications and enables them to securely scale cloud adoption across an organization,” said Punit Minocha, vice president of business development and mobile solutions, Zscaler. “Working with Okta, our customers leverage the zero footprint deployment model of Zscaler to streamline their IT environment and greatly reduce costs.”
Available via Partners and Direct from Okta, With More to Come
Okta’s Active Directory Integration service is now available directly from Okta and a number of its ISV partners, including Box, Docusign and Zscaler, enabling customers and enterprises everywhere to get free integration to these applications quickly and easily. Companies can also get Okta’s free Active Directory integration offerings for salesforce.com, Google Apps, Workday Docusign and NetSuite directly from www.okta.com.
“Integrating a cloud application into an existing corporate directory has traditionally been a real barrier to cloud adoption,” said Frederic Kerrest, COO, Okta. “We have built the industry’s most widely deployed and field-tested Active Directory integration for cloud applications, and today we are making that technology freely available for cloud ISVs, developers and enterprise IT administrators everywhere. At Okta, we are big believers in the power of the cloud, and we’re making our Active Directory integration technology available for free to accelerate the adoption and deployment of cloud applications in the enterprise. Partner and customer reaction has been extremely positive, and we look forward to engaging with the broader cloud ISV community as our program scales.”
Okta’s Active Directory integration partner program is now open to any cloud ISV or cloud application developer looking to integrate its application with Active Directory to better serve enterprise customers. For more information on the program, please visit: www.okta.com/partners/okta-cloud-connect.html
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