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ESSO SOS:
The critical questions every
company needs to ask
By David TingFounder and Chief Technology OfficerImprivata, Inc.
June, 2005TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction..........................................................................................................2
Application Support.............................................................................................2
Deployment..........................................................................................................3
Ongoing Management........................................................................................ 4
Additional Features, Tools and Services.............................................................6
Choosing the Right ESSO Solution for All the Right Reasons......................... 7
ESSO Solution Checklist...................................................................................... 8
2 ESSO SOS: The critical questions every company needs to ask
Whether prompted by the compliance requirements of HIPAA or GLBA, the growing need tostrengthen IT security, or mounting user frustration due to forgotten passwords, more and moreorganizations are thinking seriously about implementing Enterprise Single Sign-On (ESSO). Accordingto Giga Research analyst Steve Hunt, "Enterprise SSO works well and makes sense. It is a secure, costeffective tool for adding value to an organization. It would be wise for vendors to implement it today."
But when organizations look at the ESSO marketplace, they may feel the need to send out an SOS.There is a growing number of ESSO vendors offering a diverse array of solutions each with its owncapabilities, associated costs, resource requirements, deployment needs, and implementation times.The lack of a common approach to delivering ESSO makes it a challenge for organizations to comparethe relative merits of ESSO solutions.
No single ESSO solution can be right for every company. So how do you know which one best suitsyour business, its size, your budget, or your desired implementation schedule?
This white paper is intended to make the ESSO evaluation process simpler and faster by identifyingthe critical questions you need to ask ESSO vendors as you evaluate their solutions. These questionsare organized into four key ESSO topics: application support; deployment; ongoing management; andadditional features, tools and services. By asking these questions and comparing vendor responses,you'll get a clearer picture of the capabilities and strengths of each ESSO solution, as well as itsrequirements and associated costs. Once you're armed with that information, you'll be well on yourway to choosing an ESSO solution that keeps your organization's assets more secure, and your peoplemore productive. The right ESSO solution will also deliver a quick and significant return on yourinvestment.
Application Support
By definition, an "Enterprise Single Sign-On" solution has to do just that; it must provide SSO accessacross the enterprise. While you may deem ESSO only essential for some of your applications andusers, an ESSO solution must still offer you the option of supporting all applications and all users atall locations all the time.
That's a tall order when you consider the complexity of today's corporate IT environments, the growing number of devices people use to access their applications, and the globally-dispersed natureof many organizations. These environments often include legacy applications that have been modi-fied and updated over years or even decades. Some have client/server applications that split process-ing chores between desktop workstations and departmental servers. And increasingly, organizationsare using Web-based applications owned and run by third-party vendors. Users are accessing theseapplications from a variety of locations using everything from wired PCs to wireless laptops to personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Some of the most important questions to ask ESSO solution providers involve application support.That's because a sizeable portion of the cost, resource requirements, and implementation time of anESSO solution depend on how that solution handles the process of ESSO-enabling an application.Generally speaking, the more application modifications, customization, and workstation installationsare required to ESSO-enable each applic... [download for more]
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