Considering a choice of Avatier vs. CA Technologies for your identity and access management needs? If you have already developed your shortlist for products, it is time to look at features and capabilities so you can make a smart choice. Specifically, you will see a comparison focusing on Layer7 SiteMinder vs. Avatier Single Sign-On.
1) Avatier vs CA Technologies: Privileged User Management
Administrative users (also known as admins or super users) are an essential group to manage. If these particular accounts are tough to manage, you will face increased security risk.
With Avatier Single Sign-On, you have several options to monitor administrative users. You get app usage and session monitoring for administrative users. You also get session recordings so you can investigate suspicious activities in the event of an incident. Further, you also get the capability to manage admin accounts on cloud services. That means you save time when it comes to keeping your cloud accounts under control.
For CA Technologies, there appears to be limited support for this use case. In reviewing the product brief, there is no mention of privileged users or administrative users. If you need to manage this group of user accounts closely, Avatier is the better choice. After all, imagine the damage that can happen if credentials for an administrative user fell into the wrong hands. That’s a security risk you can manage effectively when you use Avatier.
2) CA Technologies Vs. Avatier: Which Helps Manage SaaS Licenses?
Your company may have hundreds or perhaps thousands of software as service licenses. It might start with Microsoft licenses which you may know how to manage well. However, consider all of the SaaS licenses that other departments outside of IT are purchasing. They are buying advertising tools, sales automation tools and other software tools. All of these SaaS licenses represent a significant spend and potential security risk.
Therefore, you need a way to monitor SaaS app usage across your enterprise. Without this data, you will not be able to make effective software management decisions.
By using Avatier’s single sign-on solution, you receive information on SaaS application usage. For example, you can see how often certain SaaS applications are accessed. That matters because you can easily detect which applications are used heavily and which are not used. With that information, you can scale back SaaS licenses without impacting end-user productivity.
In the case of CA Technologies, SaaS license management features are unclear. The company’s product brief refers to SaaS applications from access management only. Avatier also provides access management for SaaS tools. The difference? Avatier adds more value by offering usage tracking information.
To optimize your SaaS license arrangements, Avatier is the better choice.
3) Avatier vs. CA Technologies: How Do They Compare In The User’s Password Experience?
Your single sign-on (SSO) software solution should make life easier for your users. When everything works smoothly, your users enter their credentials once and move on with their day. So let’s take a look at how Avatier and CA Technologies compare the user’s password experience.
For CA Technologies, there are some interesting features. For example, the product offers social log-in support. That means that end users can use their social web (e.g. Google) credentials at work. On the other hand, you may not want to encourage your users to be in a “social media” mindset when they handle company information.
Regarding Avatier’s Single Sign-On software, your users enjoy seamless password synchronization. That means they can choose a password once and immediately use it across the organization. Providing a fast authentication experience means users will be less inclined to use low-security habits like writing down passwords.
Avatier goes one step further to provide maximum convenience to users. Rather than forcing users to wait for help desk assistance, you can use Apollo, a specialized AI chatbot, to get password resets immediately. Even better, Apollo integrates directly with collaboration tools like Slack, Skype, and your corporate website. That means your users can get password help when they want and use their favorite tools.
Avatier has a superior solution in terms of ease of use and convenience for users. Given that IT security sometimes has a bad reputation for slowing down productivity, you should take advantage of every feature you can to deliver a fast and painless user experience.
4) Avatier Vs. CA Technologies: Which Is Best For Managers?
Implementing successful identity and access management requires participation from across the company. The information security or cybersecurity takes a leading role. End-users need to know their responsibility for managing passwords and keeping them safe. Finally, managers have a role to play. However, we also need to recognize that managers are busy and they are usually not IT security specialists.
With Avatier, you get a solution designed to make life easy for managers without compromising security protection. For example, you can use Group Enforcer to manage whole groups of users at once. If a manager hired five new customer support employees in a week, she could use the same access profile for all of them. That frees up time for mentorship, training and support.
In contrast, CA Technologies has less support for everyday managers. The product brief describes SiteMinder’s technical features like social log-in and support for OpenID Connect. Those are exciting features for IT. However, there is no mention made of automation or productivity features for front-line managers and supervisors.
To help your company’s managers become effective with identity and access management, Avatier is the better choice.
What To Do After You Choose Your SoftwareInstalling a single sign-on solution is an excellent way to improve security. However, it would help if you also supported processes to measure and improve your identity and access management program over time. To help you with that process, read our post on the weekly IT security maintenance habit.
