In our last post, we discussed some of the most compelling reasons for adopting identity and access management (IAM) in the cloud. Like most other cloud services, identity as a service (IDaaS) offers cost-effective, high availability and affordable scalability. However, as you consider the possibility of moving from your legacy, on-premises IAM system to the cloud, it’s vital that you begin with a clear understanding of common misperceptions that haunt the emerging IDaaS market; here are the two biggest ones:

It’s practically a given that at least some of your IT systems and operations are in now in the cloud. In fact, 70 percent of small businesses and 90 percent of midmarket enterprises do, and the rest must begin to do so soon or risk falling behind their competition. According to Cisco, 83 percent of all data center traffic will be based in the cloud within the next three years; 2017 will see a particularly significant migration of workloads moving to cloud-based platforms, with IT modernization leading the way.

Previously in our two-part series on the identity and access challenges unique to higher education, we discussed users with multiple roles, the increasing use of technology in the classroom, and limited budget and manpower. As you may already have guessed, these challenges are just the beginning.

This week, I’m heading to Sacramento, California for the 2016 CETPA Annual Conference. Held by the California Educational Technology Professionals Association (CETPA), the conference is attended by IT professionals from K-12 school districts throughout the state.

In today’s educational landscape, universities and colleges face distinct identity and access challenges unlike those encountered in retail and other commercial environments. And while retail, financial services, and the like are generally viewed as higher-risk from a cybersecurity point of view, the risks to higher education are just as critical. In fact, higher education “accounts for 17 percent of all reported data breaches, ranking second only to the medical industry,” according to Privacy Rights Clearing House. In this first post of our two-part series, we will take a look at some of these  challenges that are unique to higher education.

Identity Automation hit a significant milestone in Q3 this year. We are managing an additional one million users so far this year as we continue to expand into the enterprise, government, and higher education vertical markets.

Today, I want to look at one of the ways that RapidIdentity allows administrators to automate tedious and cumbersome tasks. I’ll demonstrate a way to analyze Windows domain controllers for the presence of a specific software installation and also provide the entire RapidConnect action at the end of the post, so that you can modify it to fit your needs.

*Disclaimer: This article originally appeared in eSchool News. 

Student data privacy is quite a different topic from the headlines most people read concerning data breaches. It is not about malicious intruders hacking or stealing credentials to get into a system to steal corporate intellectual property or records to sell on the dark web. Student data privacy concerns, specifically, center on the misuse of personally identifiable information, known by its acronym PII.

As the higher education landscape evolves, the community college system is growing in importance. For example, it is now commonplace for community college campuses, such as Houston Community College (HCC) and California Community College System, to serve as physical locations for associated state university classes. With this partnership in place, state universities can increase revenue and serve a broader student population, working to educate students who previously would not have been able to attend university classes.

Our latest release focuses on new features that will increase the speed and security of authentication requests for young students. Additionally, we have added enhancements to RapidPortal to help organize Applications. You will also find enhancements to the Reporting functionality to make it even easier to access the information you need.