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Okta solutions manage hybrid environments, modernise server access

Kirsten Doyle
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
London, 20 Jun 2019
Co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon speaking at the Okta Forum 2019 in London.
Co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon speaking at the Okta Forum 2019 in London.

Cloud-based identity management specialist Okta has introduced two new products, Okta Access Gateway and Okta Advanced Server Access.

Okta Access Gateway

Okta Access Gateway enables secure, single sign-on access, management and visibility into on-premises applications, through the Okta Identity Cloud.

According to the company’s co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon, who was speaking at the Okta Forum 2019 held in London this week, the solution solves the hybrid IT access problem for enterprises, connecting on-premises applications from legacy vendors such as Oracle, IBM, and SAP, along with custom-built, on-premises applications to the Okta Identity Cloud.

It also uses a flexible deployment model that gives enterprises the choice between deploying a proxy on-premises or through multiple IaaS vendors, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Okta Access Gateway delivers a simple solution to modern, hybrid identity and access management.

Through the Identity Cloud, companies can manage and secure access to their applications from a single, independent source with no vendor constraints or lock-in.

“Okta believes in enabling every organisation to connect to the technology it needs, regardless of where that technology sits,” said McKinnon, who called the product `a major step forward’ in providing enterprises a more seamless experience managing their hybrid IT, providing secure access and visibility.

Okta Advanced Server Access

The second new product, Okta Advanced Server Access, takes what McKinnon calls a `modern approach to server access’ by completely removing the need for static keys. The product features an ephemeral credential mechanism that brings centralised access controls across any cloud environment supporting Linux and Windows servers, and cloud instances across Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure.

The solution also enables granular access decisions about each login request, which is able to consider device, session context, and dynamic user information. In this way, Okta acts as the infrastructure, and its Universal Directory as the single source of truth for local server accounts.

Okta Lifecycle Management automatically provisions and deprovisions accounts to the downstream servers, and SSO becomes part of the SSH/RDP authentication workflow.

Lastly, for stronger authentication, the solution uses multi-factor authentication.

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