Published on the 23/06/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
Cloud-based single sign on identity management and authentication service Okta, which costs roughly $2 per user per month to deploy, is ramping up its activities in Australia…
Okta, the cloud-based identity and access management service, launched in Australia in May as a first step to making the service available across Asia Pacific next year.
It already has 25 local users largely by dint of arrangements those companies had put in place with the US-based service before the local office was opened, although it has now signed up other local users including a real estate business and State Government department. Internationally Okta claims 1000 users including LinkedIn and SAP.
Okta offers cloud-based directory services, single-sign on, user authentication, provisioning, workflow and reporting. It can be used by organisations to manage the anytime anywhere access for users of either on-premise or cloud-based applications, based on job requirements and company policy.
The system is being touted as a more secure, and cheaper way to manage user access, and also helping IT departments ensure compliance with enterprise policies regarding systems and data access, particularly important in light of Australia’s new privacy regime.
Identified earlier this year as a leader in the Identity and Access Management as a Service market by Gartner, Okta has also just closed what it’s describing as its final round of funding – a $US75 million injection – intended to fund the company’s expansion, including to Australia and Asia Pacific.
Graham Pearson is the company’s regional vice president based in Australia, one of just two staff in the local office at present. Pearson said that from an end user’s viewpoint using the system is simple – having downloaded the Okta app to their device, users are able to sign on using an email and a second authenticator – which could be a code sent via SMS or using Google Authenticator.
He said that besides moving the cost of the system onto opex rather than capex, the cloud-based system meant companies could have authentication systems up and running much more swiftly than if they bought on-premise solutions.
Pearson said that the Okta cloud was being offered out of eight separate data centres around the world, mainly – though not exclusively – Amazon’s. It is not currently running on a local data centre.
