It’s time to put an end to Open Source IAM myths!
Let’s accept it! Where would we be without Identity Access management(IAM)? Year after year the number of data breaches has been increasing. With the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, cybercrime has increased by 600%! Perplexed as to how the Coronavirus is linked with cybersecurity issues, then check out our blog on ‘How Remote Work has paved way for Cybercrime?’
One of the main reasons the numbers aren’t worse than this is due to IAM. However, IAM products are expensive to install and maintain. That’s why industry experts have come up with the concept of Open Source IAM 30+ years ago. However, people have failed to recognize its value to date, due to many misconceptions and myths.
Here, I will be debunking 5 common myths on Open Source IAM.
Myth #1: Less secure than commercial IAM products
This has been a common myth about open source software in general, and more-so for IAM since it’s a security service. However, open source IAM is more secure.
Popular open source IAM is less likely to include bugs and security vulnerabilities compared to their closed source counterparts. With paid software, you have no choice but to trust the vendor. However, with open source, you get to take part in code reviews, provide bug fixes, and stick to whichever version you deem fit. You don’t need to compromise your work by using an unstable release version.
Just as in any case, teamwork increases productivity. When multiple people work on open source projects, they’re certainly more likely to find and fix bugs quickly.
Myth #2: Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance
Maintenance is no longer an issue with open source IAM. Almost all of them provide the following services:
- Multiple installations, infrastructure, and deployment options
- Dedicated hosting
- Professional migration support
- Continuous access to product improvements, security updates, and performance enhancements
Myth #3: Integration hassle
No one ever thought of Microsoft acquiring GitHub or IBM acquiring Red Hat, but it happened. With mergers and acquisitions becoming common, we can no longer limit organizations’ IAM requirements within their boundaries.
For a long time, people thought that integration would be an issue with open source, but it’s time to prove them wrong. Many open source IAMs have an extensible architecture that provides connectors to integrate with closed source systems.
Now like any other IAM product, open source IAM products would certainly involve some amount of complexity. Any IAM product would take a couple of months to integrate and implement if someone were doing it for the first time.
That’s why we’re here to integrate Open Source IAM services for you within 30 minutes!! Yes, that’s right. Sennovate has been working for many years with Gluu to develop the necessary automation you need – using Industry Standards – to deploy in various platforms like AWS, VMWare, GCP, Nutanix, and much more.
Curious to find out how only we can integrate IAM services within a matter of 30 minutes? Learn more!
Myth #4: Not scalable
Scalability is a key factor to be considered to ensure customer demand and growth, especially in customer-facing or CIAM solutions. All the leading open source IAM vendors like Gluu and Keycloak ensure that their products are 100% scalable through a large customer base and by ensuring that their deployments are customer-facing.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that even open source IAM products are like any other COTS product i.e they are also deployed either on-premise or on hosted cloud platforms. However, no license cost is involved. Although, the underneath infrastructure certainly has to be designed right to make sure it’s scalable and highly available. Hence, you need to make sure your vendor has vast experience in infrastructure design and IAM implementation using open source IAM.
Myth #5: No professional support
Community support is not the only benefit of open source. Certainly, open source developers offer professional support. However, it can be pretty expensive if you buy the product directly from the vendor.
At Sennovate we provide support for open source IAM at an affordable price. We provide our customers with Software Development support for FREE!
Why should you switch to Open Source IAM?
- Quick Implementation
- No more Vendor Lock-in
- Better IT team involvement
- Community support
- Extensible and Scalable
Remember, just because something is free doesn’t mean it’s low quality! Open Source software has existed for ages and has made our lives way easier. It’s free after all. So, why not give it a shot?