Access management provider Okta has teamed up with cloud service provider Cloud Sherpas with the aim of help to further push the implementation of Google Apps by enterprises. The companies’ goal is to streamline setup and reduce IT expenses for businesses.
Cloud Sherpas is a reseller that touts itself as helping businesses simplify the process of “going Google.” The company states that it has helped more than a million enterprises migrate to Google Apps for email and collaboration.
Okta’s platform lets companies securely manage all web-based applications, including Google Apps, regardless of the authentication methods they support or whether they run inside or outside the corporate firewall. For end users, this means single sign-on for Google Apps and all other web-based applications they access. For IT administrators, it means automated user management capabilities to efficiently and securely manage Google Apps accounts. In a Q&A on Cloud IT Pro, Okta CEO Todd McKinnon describes the company’s strategy this way:
We’re tackling are solving the three basic problems all our customers have. First, we want to give users a single URL to access multiple services in the cloud. Secondly, our system is an identity management system, so we can manage user identities across multiple applications. The third major bucket is reporting and analytics. Once people are using the system to manage cloud services, we can give them all kinds of information about how everything is performing … We think the cloud is fundamentally better, and all companies should be developing a strategy to leverage it. By creating this universal standard, we think we can accelerate the adoption of cloud capabilities immensely.
Okta and Cloud Sherpas have already worked together to bring cloud capabilities to a number of companies, including AMAG Pharmaceuticals, a Lexington, Mass.-based company that uses Okta to manage Google Apps(TM) and more than 20 other cloud-based applications. In addition to the reseller partnership, Cloud Sherpas has selected Okta for internal use to secure and manage the company's web-based applications. Cloud Sherpas now uses Okta to manage more than 50 web-based applications across the company.
