Okta introduces new products and enhancements for Oktane21

Okta has introduced a number of new innovations in line with its annual conference, Oktane21. This includes two new products: Okta Privileged Access, which unites privileged access management (PAM) with enterprise identity to eliminate disparate systems, and Okta Identity Governance, which offers a modern, cloud-first approach to identity governance and administration (IGA). 

The Okta Integration Network has also expanded across four main areas, including risk and fraud, customer data orchestration, data privacy and compliance, and the software development lifecycle. These new integrations leverage identity to help solve highly complex digital transformation challenges from securing transactions to digital onboarding.

In addition, the new Okta Starter Developer Edition has launched to provide developers with tools to embed Okta authentication, authorisation and user management into applications at scale.

Okta Privileged Access

Traditional PAM solutions prove to be too brittle to adapt to the constantly changing resource and user types that come with cloud-based DevOps organisations. To meet today’s needs, modern enterprises require a real-time, Zero Trust security strategy anchored in identity and privileged access management spanning IT, security, and engineering teams. 

Okta Privileged Access unites flexible, least privileged access requirements with identity to enable organisations to accelerate and strengthen Zero Trust security posture. Fine-grained, user, and role-based security policies can be applied seamlessly from a central system to manage who can access what at the infrastructure level. Further, compliance outcomes become streamlined by tying session logging to specific users in a centralised view. Okta Privileged Access can be deployed to production faster than any alternative and builds on Okta’s proven success in securing critical infrastructure with Okta Advanced Server Access. 

“Thousands of servers power Zoom’s frictionless communications experience,” said Gary Chan, Head of IT Infrastructure & Employee Services, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. “And with millions of people turning to Zoom each and every day, security is very important for us, even at the deepest layers of our technology stack. Okta helps us to secure our core infrastructure at scale with a flexible, identity-centric solution for privileged user access and management.”

Okta Identity Governance

Enterprises have previously turned to IGA solutions to resolve complex identity governance challenges. However, traditional IGA systems were designed for on-premises applications and infrastructure, are costly and unnecessarily complex to deploy, and do not meet the needs of today’s dynamic cloud environments. 

Okta Identity Governance delivers the most critical capabilities of identity governance and administration in a modernised solution for a cloud-first world, with a single control plane to meet compliance requirements without sacrificing speed in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Building on Okta’s proven success in automation and user management, Okta Identity Governance harnesses popular workplace tools to promote delegation and self-service, streamlining the evaluation and decision-making of who should have access to what resources and when.

“T-Mobile is constantly transforming its technology to empower our employees with modern tools to best serve customers and keep up with their dynamic expectations,” said Warren McNeel, Senior Vice President of Product & Technology, T-Mobile. “Okta’s powerful automation is a core part of our IAM strategy and enables us to offer our employees seamless, secure access to critical resources in remote or in-office workplace environments. Both the business and customers benefit when automation is closely united with identity. Okta Identity Governance further streamlines user access across a wide array of devices, applications, and digital processes.”

Customer Identity Risk Ecosystem and Workflow Integrations

Okta Workflows for Customer Identity is now generally available, and the Okta Integration Network has grown its suite of new pre-built integrations to support no-code automation needs. Hubspot, Mixpanel, SendGrid, and other connectors are now available to help meet complex digital transformation use cases. The broad spectrum of Okta Workflow connectors within the Okta Integration Network makes it possible for organisations to support a wide range of customer experience use cases, including registration, analytics, privacy and consent, and customer relationship management. 

Using the new Okta Risk Ecosystem API, customers can leverage identity to ingest and centralise various external behavioral and transactional risk signals to help identify legitimate users and secure digital commerce experiences. New integrations with bot detection and web application firewall providers Signal Sciences, now a part of Fastly, HUMAN, F5 Networks, and PerimeterX leverage the new Risk Ecosystem API to tie fraud-related risk signals to a specific user. These new integrations augment Okta’s existing partnerships in risk and fraud to further a vision of a holistic, 360 degree view of the customer and security profile.

"MLB's mission is to connect our fans with all aspects of baseball, bridging their online and ballpark experiences,” said Neil Boland, Chief Information Security Officer, Major League Baseball. "With Okta as the identity layer for our fan-facing experiences, we can offer a highly engaging and seamless digital experience while still maintaining our customers’ privacy and security at scale.”

Okta Starter Developer Edition

Developers need tools that enable them to build securely from the start and integrate across software supply chains in hybrid, cloud-native, or multi-cloud environments. The new Okta Starter Developer Edition is available now at no cost for up to 15,000 monthly active users, delivering coverage for multiple applications and including access to many of Okta’s Customer Identity products. Developers can access enhanced documentation, sample applications, and new integrations spanning continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), microservices and APIs, among more.

“MongoDB was created to unleash the power of software and data for innovators everywhere,” said Benjamin Cefalo, Director, Product Management, MongoDB. “And we’re drawn to technologies that share our DNA to solve complex scale and agility challenges. With Okta, we put the power of identity security to work. The Okta platform and APIs enable our teams to move rapidly and build highly scalable, customisable, and secure experiences that delight users.” 

The new Okta Starter Developer Edition is complemented by a reimagined development experience and redesigned console for all Okta customers that delivers faster time-to-market and full application development lifecycle support. Developers can now get up-and-running rapidly through enhanced documentation, guides, and sample applications for the most popular languages and frameworks including Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, VueJS, React Native, and Spring Boot. 

In addition, powerful new integrations with DevOps, SecOps, and API Security tooling means developers can leverage the power of identity across a variety of use cases to secure applications, APIs, and infrastructure. New integrations include Heroku to automate identity across CI/CD pipelines, Kong to protect APIs, and an updated Okta Terraform provider to replicate Okta configuration across environments.