In this day and age, one of the smartest things you can do for your enterprise is to move from on-premise infrastructure to a cloud-based one. Not only do you get improved scalability and functionality, but you also get better security and management possibilities for your enterprise.
However, if you’ve already done this (or are considering it), here’s another thing to add to the process that’ll help – a single sign-on solution. We’re talking about a service like Shibboleth SP, which is an industry-leading SSO solution and helps you boost productivity, security, and customer satisfaction.
That being said, there are plenty of reasons why you should be considering such a solution, so let’s check out how it is, how it works, and why you need to consider it.
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What is a Single Sign-On Solution?
A single sign-on solution, or an SSO, is an authentication process that allows a consumer (or employee) to log in to multiple pieces of software which are related to each other, using just one set of credentials. If you find the right provider for an SSO, you can implement this with just about any platform or technology you’re using at the moment.
Opting for an SSO service doesn’t just allow your consumers to log on to all your apps with a single set of credentials, but it also lets them switch between different apps, without additional action required, thus making the entire process significantly easier. Instead of requiring the credentials from the user, the app gets them from the SSO service, simplifying things by quite the margin.
But that’s not everything you stand to gain if you implement something like Shibboleth, so here are a few other key benefits.
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A Boost in Security
Even though quite a lot of people tend to argue this is a weakness of SSO, in practice, it’s the exact opposite. An argument could be made that with an SSO solution, stealing one password will give an attacker access to just about everything that password can access. But that only works in theory, whereas things are a bit different in everyday life.
People suffer from a thing known as password fatigue, and when you consider that on average, we have about 100 logins to remember, that’s not really a surprise. That being said, with a single sign-on solution, you only have to remember one password, which gives you all the more reason to make it as difficult and complex to guess as possible. We’re talking about numbers, mixing lowercase and uppercase letters, symbols, you name it. Length is also important, but you get the point.
To add to this, having just a single password makes it easier to remember, regardless of how complex it is, and you won’t feel the need to write it down somewhere, which is not the smartest idea. Pair this with the ability to combine SSO with two-factor authentication (2FA), and you realize it doesn’t get a lot more secure than that.
An Improvement in Productivity
Ask your IT support department what one of their worst situations is, and they’ll probably tell you they aren’t keen on dealing with people with login issues. Ask your customers what situation they least want to contact support for, and they’ll probably give you the same one. A single sign-on solution simplifies things quite a bit, and users won’t need to reach out to support as often as usual.
There’s also the fact that, as we mentioned, there’s no additional action if a consumer wants to switch from one application to another, which further brings down the number of reasons why they’d need support, and let them enjoy your apps instead.
Software Adoption is Much Easier
How many times have you wanted to use an app or software, only to give up on it because you found out that the signup and login process is too difficult? We’re willing to bet that happens often, and an SSO is a perfect solution for that.
At its core, technology aims to make people’s lives easier, not more difficult, and dealing with things like this is part of the reason SSO exists. Rather than having users struggle with sign up and log in, you can integrate the app you want to use with your SSO solution, and just let your consumers use it without worrying about logins at all. And with the right single sign-on solution, app compatibility is great. Shibboleth, the example we mentioned above, has compatibility with over 5,500 cloud apps, which is quite a bit.
At the end of the day, whether or not you go for it is completely up to you. But deploying a single sign-on solution to your cloud infrastructure will make everyone’s lives easier, and your enterprise’s business will benefit quite a bit.
