KuppingerCole Report
Leadership Brief
By Warwick Ashford

Recommendations for aligning ITSM with IAM/IGA

The versatility of modern IT Service Management systems (ITSM) is leading many organizations to configure these systems to deal with all employee service requests, including those related to IAM/IGA. But this is a risky strategy from a maintenance and compliance point of view. This Leadership Brief outlines the key reasons for aligning ITSM with IAM/IGA systems, and how this is best achieved.
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wa@kuppingercole.com

1 Executive Summary

A single tool for all employee service requests is an attractive proposition to most medium to large organizations because of improved end user experience through convenience and familiarity, and the business’s desire to get additional value out of the ITSM system. As a result, many organizations are building functionality into their ITSM systems to respond to employee requests for anything and everything, including identity provisioning and access to the IT resources they need to do their jobs. Although this may appear to be a good idea and keep employees and the bean counters happy in the short term, this is a risky strategy because IAM/IGA functions are extremely important when it comes to information security and compliance.

Failure to fulfil all IAM/IGA-related service requests through dedicated IAM/IGA systems will inevitably lead to failures to document, log, monitor and manage these activities adequately. This in turn will lead to security and compliance risks. Another long term risk is that maintaining highly customized ITSM configurations to provide non-core IAM/IGA functionality could be challenging and costly, especially when the original developers and system integrators who were responsible for the modifications and understand how the code works are no longer available to provide support. This Leadership brief outlines how a middle ground might be achieved without exposing an organization to security and compliance risk.

2 Analysis

There is certainly value in having a single portal that everyone in an organization can use for all service requests, but it needs to be done in a way ...

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3 Recommendations

Organizations should resist the temptation to build IAM/IGA functionality within ITSM systems. Just because it is ostensibly an easy and cost efficien ...

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4 Related Research

Leadership Compass: IDaaS Access Management - 79016
Leadership Compass: Identity as a Service (IDaaS) IGA - 80051
Leadership Compass: Identity Governance & Administration - 71135
Leadership Brief: How to set up your IAM organization - 72548
Leadership Brief: 10 Top Trends in IAM - 80335
Whitepaper: Why Modern Enterprise IAM Must Be Rearchitected: Build Your Case for Containerized IAM and IDaaS - 80044

Copyright

©2022 KuppingerCole Analysts AG all rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form is forbidden unless prior written permission. All conclusions, recommendations and predictions in this document represent KuppingerCole´s initial view. Through gathering more information and performing deep analysis, positions presented in this document will be subject to refinements or even major changes. KuppingerCole disclaim all warranties as to the completeness, accuracy and/or adequacy of this information. Even if KuppingerCole research documents may discuss legal issues related to information security and technology, KuppingerCole do not provide any legal services or advice and its publications shall not be used as such. KuppingerCole shall have no liability for errors or inadequacies in the information contained in this document. Any opinion expressed may be subject to change without notice. All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

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KuppingerCole, founded in 2004, is a global, independent analyst organization headquartered in Europe. We specialize in providing vendor-neutral advice, expertise, thought leadership, and practical relevance in Cybersecurity, Digital Identity & IAM (Identity and Access Management), Cloud Risk and Security, and Artificial Intelligence, as well as for all technologies fostering Digital Transformation. We support companies, corporate users, integrators and software manufacturers in meeting both tactical and strategic challenges and make better decisions for the success of their business. Maintaining a balance between immediate implementation and long-term viability is at the heart of our philosophy.

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