VMware Identity manager and the 3 reasons why companies should use it

During VMworld 2015 one of the sessions I followed was about the VMware Identity manager (vIDM) and the 3 reasons why companies should use it. There might be even more then those three reasons, but in this article I will stick to those described in the session.

Reason 1.

The first one i guess is the most known reason and that is BYOD. With vIDM you can offer your users a single portal to your business applications and data, which can be accessible from any device.

Reason 2.

Reason number two is the fact that SaaS applications are pushing out the client-server applications that you install in a on-premise infrastructure. One of the downsides of SaaS applications is that they might need additional authentication and thus can frustrate a user with yet another set of credentials. With vIDM you can offer a SSO solution so users only need to use a single set of credentials to access all their applications.

Reason 3.

The thirth reason was one that I had never stopped to think about and that is to simplify the implementation of Microsoft Office 365. When Office 365 is being implemented you need to create user accounts in the Azure AD, but still need to keep their current AD intact for their on-premise applications. Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) can be used to bridge the two AD’s, but companies find ADFS to complex and requires to many changes to their on-premise infrastructure. With vIDM you can create the bridge between both AD’s in a easy way, without making changes to the infrastructure and offer users with a single set of credentials.

With the reasons described above I believe that VMware Identity manager can and will help a lot of companies, providing their users easy and secure access to all (either in the cloud or on-premise) of their applications.