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Secure LDAP in Google Cloud Identity

ID-ManagementAs the adoption of software-as-a-service solutions continues to accelerate in the enterprise, today's digital innovators need a way to innovate and maintain security at the same time. Many traditional LDAP-based applications and IT infrastructure solutions still make up a significant percentage of the IT portfolio for most organizations. As Google found in their extensive testing procedures, helping employees to access the best SaaS apps and traditional infrastructure in a simple way can be quite a challenge.

Secure LDAP in cloud identity is a solution designed by Google to solve the challenge of maintaining often fragmented security and app management solutions. In the past, companies needed to keep two identity systems separately to give employees access to traditional and SaaS apps simultaneously. Now, organizations can use Cloud Identity to give staff members access to all the apps they use, with just their G-Suite credentials. IT teams can finally obtain a single cloud-based access and identity management solution.


What is Google Cloud Identity?

Before we discuss all the benefits of Secure LDAP in Cloud Identity, let's examine Cloud Identity as a Google solution. Cloud Identity is an "Identity as a Service" system and enterprise mobility management product that allows mid-market companies to access endpoint administration and identity services available in G-Suite as standalone products.

Cloud Identity comes with an avalanche of fantastic features, including account security capabilities like two-step verification, lifecycle management services, single sign-on solutions, and device management for distributed teams.

Cloud Identity is available both in a free and premium edition. The free option provides some core endpoint management and identity features for people who don't use other G-Suite services like Google Drive and Gmail. Alternatively, the premium option comes with everything you need to secure and enhance your mid-market enterprise app strategy. Premium Cloud Identity features application management, enterprise security, device management and more.


What are the Benefits of Cloud Identity?

Essentially, Cloud Identity is all about giving today's employees the perfect blend of innovative productivity-boosting features, and one-click access to their favorite applications. With Cloud Identity, you can allow your team members to work seamlessly wherever they are, from any device, with access to all the apps they need at a single click. The Single sign-on feature includes OpenID and SAML 2.0 support and works with hundreds of popular applications.

Cloud Identity also helps businesses to be more agile in their hybrid cloud environments, without compromising on security. You can seamlessly connect your on-prem and cloud directories in a single, secure and highly reliable IDaaS platform. What's more, you can keep your data safe, while allowing employees to take part in modern workplace initiatives like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).


What is Secure LDAP Cloud Identity?

Secure LDAP Cloud Identity is the latest feature announced for the Cloud Identity framework. Introduced as part of the Cloud Next event in London, Secure LDAP Cloud Identity gives teams the tools they need to manage access to IT infrastructure and LDAP-based apps using either Cloud Identity or G-Suite. Until this innovation emerged from Google, having to maintain two separate identity systems on-premise and in the cloud often made life a lot more difficult for IT teams. For the most part, distinct maintenance strategies were the only option, because SaaS apps and on-prem solutions didn't work well together.

Ultimately, this complex integration meant higher overheads for IT teams, fragmented security, and higher costs for mid-market businesses all around.

With Secure LDAP Cloud Identity, Google aims to solve all of these problems quickly and effectively, helping mid-market companies to improve the ROI on their cloud and on-premise applications. Using Secure LDAP Cloud Identity, IT teams can use a single cloud-based identity along with their access management solution to allow employees access to both LDAP-based and SaaS infrastructure and apps.


The Benefits of Secure LDAP Cloud Identity

The most apparent benefit of Secure LDAP Cloud Identity is that it immediately gives modern companies an opportunity to reduce their workplace overhead costs and improve security with unified identity and access management solutions on a single platform.

Secure LDAP is an advanced LDAP-as-a-service solution designed for traditional IT infrastructure and apps solutions, as well as SaaS applications. The Secure LDAP service is included as a seamless part of the G-Suite and Cloud Identity package. Benefits include:

Exceptional Google-grade security: Google provides its customers with the same security measures that it uses to protect and manage billions of consumer and enterprise identities.

Options to evolve: With Secure LDAP, you can explore the potential of the hybrid cloud and reduce your dependency on legacy identity infrastructure.

Single cloud-based platform: Keep your LDAP-based and SaaS systems all located in the same secure place and reduce complexity for IT managers.

Excellent uptime: With 99.9% uptime guaranteed by Google, you can ensure that your employees will always have access to the applications they need for productivity.

Scale Seamlessly: Since the best mid-market businesses are always growing, Google ensures that you can scale rapidly using their cloud-based solutions without having to worry about things like new hardware and capacity.


Getting Started with Secure LDAP Cloud Identity

Some customers have already begun to explore the benefits of Secure LDAP Cloud Identity for themselves, and Google even revealed a few use cases during the Cloud Next event in London. For instance, the company "Doctor on Demand" is using their Secure LDAP solution to help admins access Jamf Pro. Google is currently in the process of working with multiple brands like Jenkins, OpenVPN, Atlassian and many more to make sure that their apps are compatible with the Cloud Identity Secure LDAP experience.


According to Google, almost any app that supports LDAP over SSL will be able to work with Secure LDAP. The system is now generally available, which means that you can access it if you have Cloud Identity Premium or G-Suite Enterprise. There's also a 30 day free trial available if you want to test the system first.

For help setting up your Google Cloud experience or getting started with LDAP Cloud Identity, contact Coolhead Tech today!