Identity Analytics: Can an IAM Project Be Successful Without It?

Almost two years ago, Gartner made an observation about Identity and Access Management (IAM) projects, saying that the deployment of more than half of them posed problems and was subject to major execution difficulties. Two years later, this assessment is still valid and concerns enterprises in every region of the world. Companies look for ways to combat this issue, and many have turned to RadiantOne Identity Analytics to solve the problem.

Many companies attest to the fact that these challenging projects can be tedious, costly and time-consuming, even when industry-appropriate software tools are used. The inherent complexity of IAM projects is an obstacle to the optimal use of the solutions available on the market even when the adoption of them claims to be seem seamless and simple. Radiant Logic prides itself on the growth of our Identity Analytics solutions among customers who have as a call to augment, improve and enhance the success of their IAM projects within the enterprise environment.

Identity Analytics is a key component designed to support and accelerate IAM projects. Our years of expertise in this area have been attested to by our customers around the world, mostly in America and Europe. They have sung our praises on Gartner Peer Insights and have given testimony to the fact that Radiant Logic always places the needs and requirements of the customer and their IAM/IGA projects first and foremost in their scope. This article will explain how you, our customer, can unlock its full potential in order to optimize processes and achieve successful results.

What are the challenges and issues facing IAM projects?

Impeccable data quality: an essential prerequisite

The data integrated into an IAM solution is the foundation of any project. It is a key element that defines the processes to be used by the team players and allows them to make the right decisions. The absence of data quality issues related to user access and accounts of all types makes it possible for colleagues and departments within the enterprise, not matter their size, to work together in an efficient and positive manner, making informed decisions much easier for all.

According to industry feedback, data quality is based on the following factors:

Only by combining all of these parameters can the data quality be defined as satisfactory. If any one of them is missing, the data, and any decision based on it, can be compromised. Finally, an optimal level of data quality remains necessary to demonstrate access right compliance to auditors and account security to auditors, and for this reason, a specialized tool, one that can work in conjunction with an IGA platform, is indispensable.

An IAM solution is not all-encompassing

The scope covered by most IAM solutions is often limited. They are usually only connected to a portion of the company’s systems and applications, resulting in limited coverage of the various types of accesses including technical, application, orphaned and service accounts.

In the case of an organization that accesses numerous and diverse resources (cloud and on-premise applications, infrastructure, unstructured data, etc.), it is impossible to ensure that all of them are managed by IAM solutions. Additionally, global synchronization of all systems is also impossible, no matter the size of the company or its IT department.

IAM solutions provide only partial visibility into access rights. If any of them is overlooked, goals cannot be achieved and access right compliance cannot be proven. Using an IAM solution is not enough since it does not guarantee that the correct access rights are granted to the appropriate individuals. Radiant One Identity Analytics solves this problem by identifying and mapping all access rights.

Unlock the full potential of Identity Analytics using an IAM solution

A solution for each step of the process

The deployment of an IAM project can be broken down as follows:

• Understanding: It is necessary to first clean the data and access rights within the organization, then to enrich them with the identity context so as to better understand them
• Determination: Once this visibility is achieved, decision-making becomes easier as does the detection of any gaps  or anomalies
• Action: The operational part of the project can now be started once this global analysis has been completed

The first two steps of any project are related to the analysis of access rights and should be handled by Identity Analytics, while the third step concerns the operational aspect of the IAM project.

Identity Analytics is a true science of access rights, designed to help with the detection, measurement and reduction of risk related to data quality issues. A specially designed solution provides a full understanding of access rights, enabling the knowledge of who has access to what and to what extent. This clarity assists in making better decisions, which in turn helps with the overall growth and success of the IAM program.

A guaranteed return on investment

According to Gartner, deploying identity and access rights governance using Identity Analytics can forecast that a company has the opportunity to experience nearly double the return on investment. This is because Identity Analytics helps to clean and enrich the data before integrating it into the IAM solution.  It also optimizes the steps of the project, including the operational “run” phase.

Utilizing Identity Analytics is essential and allows the user to:

• Identify and analyze all data and access rights present in all systems within the company
• Consolidate the data by automatically and continuously correlating it (for example, Active Directory repositories and HR data)
• View the history of the data in report format in order to perform comparative analyses

Fully-controlled access rights with RadiantOne Identity Analytics

Facilitate decisions, demonstrate access right compliance to auditors, and detect all the risks related to access rights of user, application and technical accounts. Achieving the multiple objectives of an IAM project without a dedicated Identity Analytics solution is mission impossible. Radiant Logic, a market leader, has designed Identity Analytics to meet the challenges and accelerate the pace of an IAM project, offering the guarantee of an optimal return on investment for customers in all industries and regions of the world.