Prediction #2 - The Convergence of IAM and how to Manage Complexity in a Multi Cloud, Multi Hybrid, Multi Identity World

So our, our, our second prediction is that there will be a convergence of identity and access management beyond I am silos. I, I think they're the ones who are following critical Analyst for a while, know that we are talking a lot about identity fabrics as a concept that is looking at identity management for all types of identities and all types of services. And we see new things popping up every now and there then like, like seeing cloud infrastructure, entitlement management, and, and our belief is that we need this conversions.

We need to take better integrated approaches to manage the complexity we have in today's reality of multiple clouds, multiple hybrid levels of hybrid it. And multiple identities please welcome, who is the CEO of IC consult group.

And so, Andrea welcome. What's what's your take on this? Yeah. Hello everybody.

Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Paul.

Yeah, I think what we all are aware of is that the hybrid, it is something which, which is there today. And I think this prediction somehow obvious will stay for long for long while, because I think it's not, not just, just a sequence you can say, okay, first of all, we are on premise and we go to, to an infrastructure service, go to manage service, go to a south operating, and we are done, but it's not that sequence, right?

So we're seeing that some customers are starting with a new technology, new, new solution as a service understanding, it's maybe too limited then deciding to go and run it a kind. And I'm quite that this is something what, what will, what will stay for for long while.

And, but nevertheless, if it's a service, that's an infrastructure service everywhere. You have digital identities, you have somehow a kind of IM built in, built in, into the service provided by the cloud giant and, or still running, running on, on premise. And this is not, not an interim solution, but the, this will stay for for many, many years. We have really to be aware of that, that, that our overall architecture is, is able to fulfill all the demand or the use cases of this complex complex environment. Doesn't matter if we are talking about workforce of our customers out there.

So alter, I think, I think that, that we might still have, that's something I also like to ask you, you might still have a, a gap between the perception of large system integrators, like, like I see consult of, of many vendors. So when I look at the talks I have with vendors, which around identity fabrics, I see a lot of vendors saying we want to, to go into this sort of deed, this, this more unified perspective.

I also have to say that that many of our clinical advisory customers are looking at taking a broader, a more unified perspective, but so what, what is your perspective of the outer space, so to speak? Is this already a trend we see in 2021 and pacing up in 2022, or is it still more, more at the beginning of a larger journey? And is it still requiring a lot of education? I think what is well understood is that, that having a unified view and it's about identities, that this is something we all want to achieve.

Anyhow, what, what, what is still the case? And I'm sure that this will stay quite a while, except that we have that we have very dedicated requirements of systems, which do not perfectly fit into that unified view. They still need to have identity data, hopefully no credentials anymore, but, but also not just identity data or the privileges roles, the scopes views, these kind, these kind of things, which, which affects a lot the, the way how to provide the, the unified view.

And that's also the reason why I think that this is product category of cloud infrastructure, title management solutions is really something which will get a lot of attention, additional attention next year, probably about talking a little bit at the beginning about, about privilege access management and what we, what we really see is that the pace the cloud giants are, are providing publishing new kind of services with new kind of, of resources of privileges roles that this nobody can, can really take care of all these developments out there.

And if you're not in the situation, you have complete control over your it organization. Everybody has to come and to your door. I want to use a new service out there.

Then, then you are likely not aware of all the critical resources entitlements you have out there. It's a cloud giants infrastructure. That's the reason why I Just sorry to interrupt. There's right. At the end of this statement, we say how stem cm and dream can help reducing complexity. My view is that we can't actually reduce the complexity. It's a bit like saying, you know, we now accept that most companies will, at some point probably be attacked by cyber attackers or they'll suffer some kind of breach.

So we should let, I have this theory to, of, you know, the expand universe of it infrastructure so that it never stops increasing and, and never stops expanding. Therefore, rather than trying to say, we'll reduce the complexity of the infrastructure. We put the identity first and the access first. So it doesn't matter what's behind that and how big it gets and what people do in their individual silos. And I think there two perspectives of complexity, Paul, and I think you're absolutely right. One is the complexity of the world we need to manage.

And I think we, we have no chance to reduce it that more complex and more complex and more complex. Oh, when I was young, we had data centers and then we added whatever.

Then we, we did client server and we added the cloud and we added edge computing and, and we will continue doing that. So this complexity probably will not go down. So what we need to do is we need to reduce the complexity. That's what I will, what I have behind the statement is we need to reduce the complexity in managing these environments by managing every piece, separate solution, but with a unified approach. So we need to converge into a more unified management to more unified perspectives across everything. Yeah.

I mean, I was talking to a company and they said, we want to keep stuff on premises. We want to keep stuff in our data centers because that's what we like. And we don't want everything in the cloud. So we have to accept that we can't make everything cloud native either, even though we talk about it a lot and it obviously has many advantages. So that again is the complex data that I was referring to again. Yeah. And I think you have sufficient use cases for that from your customers, for instance, in automotive.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So, so the multicloud is there, stay there?

I think the most important thing, what we can, what we can do even should really do on the, on the short term is if you're not able to complex to reduce the complex, at least being aware of what are the resources, the critical resources, accounts, roles we have have out there that the cloud providers us to to know that at least yeah, the first, the first step and understanding where I have to put our attention, our efforts on, because we likely cannot do everything at, at the same time, but, but really understanding what, what is, what has to be the focus on.

And, and I completely agree identity first. Yeah.

I, I think we all are aware of what, what happens the last, the last week. This look for shell. I think that's, it's again for, for us kind of showing that that zero trust you trust architecture is really imperative for, for, for the way, how to, how to build up an it landscape today. Okay. Thank you for the statement. And I think at the end, the advice, the prediction is that, so, and maybe it's a hope, maybe it's more a hope than a prediction that, that more, more end organizations will really take a broader perspective on identity management.

Because when we add complexity to our environment, we, we must really try to reduce it and not to add new and more and more components to manage it, but always think about how can we get a grip, how we can, we can we create maybe policy layers and, and other controls across everything. This is what I believe will become more relevant. If we see this tendency in many of the conversations we have.

And, and I said, maybe it's more hope than a prediction that this will become more mainstream in 2022. Yeah.

I, I, I agree because we have seen things like that happening in the past in a little bit different segments. For example, if I think about managing the cloud, the cloud infrastructure, right? How would it be possible today with our tools, like, for example, Terraform, which which provides us is kind of, of abstraction layer, that we are able to deal with different infrastructure providers in, in the back end, these kind kind things.

And, and, and as this pattern has proven to be successful in this kind, this kind of challenges, I'm, I'm sure that this concept of, of identity fabric having as abstraction layer in front of the concrete implementations, concrete systems, that something, what we have done the digital identity world as well. Okay. Thank you very much. We don't have more time to dive into deeper into that. Hopefully we have, have a lot of events next year, and a lot of opportunities in these events to go to dive deeper.

So the call to action at the end to our audiences, try to reduce the complexity of your identity management by more unification, by creating more comprehensive controls.