What is our primary use case?
My primary use case of Siteminder was single sign-on.
Siteminder was deployed on cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Siteminder helped my business function better by covering multiple use cases to perform single sign-on. Some had a web application, some had a native API-based application, some interacted based on SAML, and some had a single-link browser-based application, so there were different scenarios in which you wanted to perform single sign-on. There were different policies for different types of applications, using a single product.
What is most valuable?
A valuable feature of Siteminder is the way it handles bulk traffic. The features it has, in terms of routing the traffic and load balancing, are good.
What needs improvement?
An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release.
Buyer's Guide
Single Sign-On (SSO)
March 2023
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For how long have I used the solution?
The last time I used Siteminder was eight months ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Siteminder is stable. I would say it's stable with respect to the features it offers. If you are trying to perform something which is not coming out-of-the-box, then it might give you some trouble, but otherwise, the out-of-the-box features are quite stable.
There is maintenance required for Siteminder, so you will need team members to work on it. If there is a new liability that is out there, then you need to figure out how it impacts your infrastructure, how you can modify it, whether that modification will impact your use cases, and if there is not a patch given by the vendor in order to fix it, how you can do it yourself, and whether that will impact the functionality.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Whether it's easy or complex to scale will depend on how scalable your enterprise is. If you have multiple data centers, located in multiple places, then it becomes complex to scale. However, if you have a straightforward flow, then the scalability is good.
I've worked with multiple businesses, some small and others large, ranging from one hundred users to one million users. I know companies who have been using Siteminder for 15 years and others who migrated from Siteminder two years back. Whether they will increase their usage depends on their leadership. If they have already invested money into this, in order to migrate, they would have to invest further, which requires a lot of people. If they see it as a benefit and they think that, by migrating, they can cover multiple other use cases that aren't being covered, then they migrate.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is not that great. They're slow because they don't have enough people, and good engineers are not spread over the globe. I know that, for the US time zone, there are a few good engineers, but there aren't too many in the remaining time zones.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have customers who have migrated from Siteminder. If you compare Siteminder to the many other products available in the market, the new products are more modern, enhanced, and offer more features. If a company thinks that they want to use those features, they migrate from Siteminder. Any new product that is coming up in the market will always bring something new to add, and it can attract more customers and companies.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment process and initial setup is kind of complex, especially if you want to do a migration from an older version to a new version. There are a lot of manual steps that you need to perform, and if you are doing a pipeline-based deployment, then there are a few hard codings that you need to do. It requires planning.
The number of people you will need depends on how complex the environment is. I worked on it for multiple clients, so for some, we were just a team of two or three, but for others, we had a team of ten and it still took a lot of time and effort to perform the migration.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented this solution through an in-house team.
What was our ROI?
Companies using Siteminder saw a return on investment, in terms of improved security. It gives security, in terms of organization, asking people to log in to different applications, and improving the user experience and login. At the end of the day, it does provide a return.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Siteminder is a little costly. You pay for licensing, and they offer packages, so if you have less users, then you have to buy different products at different prices. If you have more of a user base, then the package is different. They also include other features—for example, if you have a database and you're using Siteminder, then it's good to use a Semantic-specific database, but if you are using less, then you have to purchase the database separately. Whereas if you are going for a bigger license, then it comes within the package. It depends on which plan you are using.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Siteminder an eight out of ten. Siteminder has good performance on specific use cases, so if your use cases align with those, then it's a good solution to go with. But it's always good to do research and see what alternative options are available and what they have to offer in comparison.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.