The enterprise cloud revolution is here. IT organisations everywhere, from small and mid-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies, are moving from on-premises software to on-demand, cloud-based services. As enterprise IT adopts more cloud systems while keeping on-prem solutions, controlling who is granted access to which applications becomes increasingly important. This presents CIOs and their teams with a whole new set of identity management challenges. In addition, users must keep track of multiple URLs, user names, and passwords to get access to their applications from ground to cloud. IT’s role is also fundamentally changing. As the steward of these new services, IT must provide insight and advice about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products to ensure the company is maximizing the business value of their investments, all while keeping on-prem systems secure and accessible from anywhere.

There are nine main identity and access management (IAM) challenges associated with adopting cloud and SaaS applications while keeping on-prem systems safe, as well as best practices for addressing each of them.