Optimal IdM - OptimalCloud

Short Summary

The Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) market continues to expand in both vendor count and functional breadth, but the term covers significantly different delivery models and capabilities. Offerings range from cloud-delivered Single Sign-On (SSO) and federation to full identity provisioning across on-premises and cloud environments, with varying support for employees, partners, customers, mobile use, and on-premises integration. A key distinction is between true multi-tenant SaaS products that enable fast self-onboarding and managed services that operate separately per tenant. Across both models, hybrid IT remains the central challenge: integrating legacy web applications and provisioning back to on-premises systems is often harder than with traditional on-prem IAM, making on-prem connectivity a decisive selection criterion. IDaaS is positioned as an adoption “springboard,” letting organizations start with foundational cloud IAM and expand as maturity and cloud strategy evolve, contributing to cloud solutions gradually overtaking on-premises IAM.

Optimal IdM (founded 2005; headquartered in Lutz, Florida; offices also in Melbourne) offers OptimalCloud, a fully managed IDaaS providing SSO, federation, and multi-factor authentication, delivered in both multi-tenant and single-tenant modes and typically hosted on Azure. Its identity foundation is a virtual directory that brokers access to existing identity stores (AD, LDAP, databases) to avoid consolidating or synchronizing identities into a single cloud repository, while still supporting a private cloud directory (AD-LDS) and integrations with AD/Azure AD. The service includes self-registration with identity proofing, self-service profile and password management, delegated administration, SCIM-based CRUD and bulk provisioning, broad federation protocol support, a “one-click” app catalog, risk/context-based step-up authentication, fine-grained ABAC authorization policies, compliance-oriented reporting with extensive export formats, and developer-oriented REST/SOAP APIs and SDKs. Strengths center on federation, delegated administration, directory flexibility, and flat-fee pricing, while challenges include limited device-context signals, limited API security functions, and a small partner ecosystem.

Interesting Facts

• The IDaaS market is growing in size and in the number of vendors.
• IDaaS offerings range from SSO to full identity provisioning for on-premises and cloud solutions.
• Multi-tenant SaaS solutions are designed for easy onboarding, including online booking and credit-card payment.
• Managed service offerings are run independently per tenant.
• Supporting hybrid IT environments is a main challenge for IDaaS, including legacy web app connectivity and identity provisioning to on-premises systems.
• Optimal IdM was established in 2005 and is headquartered in Lutz, Florida, with regional offices in the U.S. and Melbourne, Australia.
• OptimalCloud is built on top of Optimal IdM’s virtual directory, enabling use of existing identity stores such as Active Directory, LDAP, or databases.
• OptimalCloud supports federation protocols including SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, WS-Federation, WS-Trust, Shibboleth, and JWT.
• OptimalCloud provides reporting aligned to PCI DSS, SOX, and HIPAA.
• OptimalCloud is offered on a flat-fee pricing model.

Notable Quotes

• “Generally speaking, supporting hybrid IT environments is amongst the main challenges for IDaaS, across all areas.”
• “Connecting back to legacy web applications is more challenging than with most on-premise solutions, and Identity Provisioning as well.”
• “The strength and weaknesses of IDaaS solutions in connecting back to on-premise environments is an important factor.”
• “IDaaS offers a springboard for most organizations to start using foundational IAM elements delivered from the cloud and move rest of the IAM functions as they find it appropriate.”
• “Pure-play SaaS solutions are multi-tenant by design.”
• “Many vendors provide offerings that can be better described as Managed Services than as Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings.”
• “The virtual directory allows an organization to access the user information in their existing data store such as Active Directory, database, or LDAP directory, rather than having to consolidate all of the user information into one single repository.”
• “Rules are evaluated in a hierarchical fashion, and multiple rules or policies can be applied to an application.”
• “Everything done through OptimalCloud such as authentication, SSO, administrative access activity, is all stored and can be sent through their reporting engine for auditing purposes.”
• “OptimalCloud is offered on a flat-fee pricing model.”