What is our primary use case?
Okta has recently built Okta Identity Engine (OIE). It has a lot more capabilities than the classic engines. The certificate-based system is one thing, and third-party tools like Intune and Jamf for iOS devices. There is a trust relationship between these device management tools, and that contributes to control over the end-user devices.
Scalacity was a company acquired by Okta, and its technology was integrated into Okta's Advanced Server Access (ASA) product.
What is most valuable?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are two different components that I haven't seen in other products.
Okta can import many attributes into the Okta profile and send attributes from the engines. Multiple sources of truths and profile inheritance are done in granular ways. This plays a major role in ABACs going forward.
Okta's MFA features are good. Okta is looking forward with more on the push or less, relying on the Okta Verify factors. It also has extensive capabilities. It's adopting a layer-by-layer upgrade in developing the policies, like MFAs.
Okta has more when it comes to the policy level. It has distinctive features where you can do a mix and combination to have users access applications for various business cases. That's something unique and a selling feature.
What needs improvement?
Okta has a limitation with directory integrations. If you have multiple Active Directory integrations, the user distinguished name (DN) and the manager DN don't get imported properly into the Okta user profile. It has a property of Get AD user's property, but that has limitations when writing an expression language to import changes or updates to user DNs or manager DNs from AD, especially if you have AD master users.
Also, Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning. Even if only one attribute gets updated, even though it is unmapped, it can override other values in the downstream application by nullifying the query. That's the biggest flaw in my experience.
The product releases a lot of brand-new features within the quarterly releases.
For how long have I used the solution?
It's definitely the leading Identity Access Management cloud platform. I have experience with Okta for almost six to eight years now.
I've been an Okta-certified consultant since last year. I got an opportunity to work on the workforce as well as the customer side.
I have experience with more than eight Okta tenants parallelly due to various business cases across my career. Ultimately, this product itself is a pioneer in Identity Access Management.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability works very well. I've worked so far with Okta. It's like the heartbeat of that company. If Okta goes down, people are unable to authenticate anywhere. They can't get into applications. So there's a lot of dependency on Okta within the businesses and environments that I've seen so far. It's very critical.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are awesome. They have a CSM assigned for each organization, and they are pretty much responsive to any events that occur. Or if there are any escalations or incidents that impact the business, they're pretty much around in a timely fashion to support the organization.
We have the flexibility with our CSMs to reach them in any manner, email or phone, and they're available most of the time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have long relationships with other vendors for things like Identity Governance and Privileged Access Management. But one thing I've noticed is that Okta has been expanding into wider ranges.
But, there are limits and restrictions to the existing features, which are not fully developed yet. Okta have added a lot of tech in the last couple of years.
What was our ROI?
I'm not a hundred percent sure about the return of interest because it is very much dependent on the size of the organization.
I came from smaller organizations working, like, midscale to, like, large scale. So overall, like, the security breach, like, there are, like, two to three security breaches that have happened, but nothing has been damaged so far for the organization.
So, investing more in Identity access management is a critical investment for any operation as applications are moving to like cloud and SaaS-based. So, there is a dire need to protect the digital identities of enterprise tech employees as well as their customers.
There are a lot of features you can automate. Okta Workflows is a key feature that has a separate pricing than adaptive MFA or SSO. It's a combination, but Okta has features and capabilities to reduce the IT burden. Within my experience, it's been helpful so far with a lot of overhead work that comes with onboarding and offboarding.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing itself is a bit more expensive than the other products in the market so far. Since I know the product is in full demand. But, again, the price texture, features, and everything suits well for small to medium.
But, for larger organizations, it's more expensive than the other platforms. But, usually, licensing is a bit expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I definitely recommend Okta. It has all the features you can utilize to protect any organization's digital entities. Considering a lot of other factors, like cost and the overall features the company wants to use. If you want to use Identity Governance, Identity Access Management, or Privileged Access Management, that's a different story. It's also a different story if you're using other products for different needs.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
*Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.