As all Azion customers already know, our commitment to the security and simplicity of our platform is among our highest priorities. For this reason, we are pleased to introduce our new Single Sign-On (SSO) feature, which enables federated authentication across Azion products.
What Is Federated Authentication?
Federated authentication, also known as federated identity, is a way of managing a user’s electronic identity, ensuring access to various resources and different applications with just one login authentication.
Think of it this way: imagine that your email account, your favorite social network, and your music streaming service all belong to the same company. If that company uses traditional means of authentication, you will need to log in to three different systems at the beginning of the day if you want to listen to music while checking your emails and newsfeed. However, using a federated authentication system, you only log in once to an Identity Provider (IDP) and have guaranteed access to all three services without having to go through multiple authentication pages.
What Are the Benefits of Federated Authentication?
A federated authentication system generates unique digital identities assigned to each user. Thus, in a company, an employee uses the same digital identity to access the different systems that they need to use during the day: their corporate email, their companies’ time clock, and their stock control, for example.
This type of unique digital identity brings several benefits to companies that adopt it, such as:
- Centralization: All user access data will be concentrated in a single digital profile, which drastically reduces the need to create different accounts and passwords for the same user;
- Security: Users who need to create multiple access profiles tend to create passwords that are easier to remember. If the user has only one login for all systems, this can motivate them to create stronger passwords, bringing more security to their data and to the critical information they have access to;
- Simplified management: Critical data such as access permissions are stored in digital identities, which simplifies the work of security teams, who will only need to configure these permissions once. In addition, if the employee is disconnected from the company, all their permissions will be revoked by simply deleting their digital identity from the system;
- Frictionless user experience: A user of a system with federated authentication only needs to log in once to gain access to all their work tools. This saves users the frustration of dealing with login screens multiple times a day, which also saves precious time;
- Cost reduction: By reducing the workflow of security and technical support teams (who will deal less and less with problems of forgotten passwords, blocked users and multiple profiles for each user registered on the network), companies also reduce their costs.
Federated Authentication Improves Our Customers’ User Experience and Security
As demonstrated in the previous section, federated authentication will bring many benefits to users of Azion Edge Platform. By configuring the feature directly in our Real-Time Manager, our Enterprise plan customers have the added protection and simplicity brought by Single Sign-On in just a few clicks, at no additional cost. From that moment, users registered in our network enjoy the benefits of federated authentication in all our products.
Learn About Our Federated Authentication Feature and Other Security Tools
Would you like to learn more about our federated authentication feature or other security and productivity tools? Talk to one of our experts now and find out how Azion can help your digital revolution at the edge.
