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Okta Administration: Up and Running

By Lovisa Stenbäcken Stjernlöf , HenkJan de Vries
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  1. Free Chapter
    Chapter 1: IAM and Okta
About this book
IAM, short for identity and access management, is a set of policies and technologies for ensuring the security of an organization through careful role and access assignment for users and devices. With this book, you’ll get up and running with Okta, an identity and access management (IAM) service that you can use for both employees and customers. Once you’ve understood how Okta can be used as an IAM platform, you’ll learn about the Universal Directory, which covers how to integrate other directories and applications and set up groups and policies. As you make progress, the book explores Okta’s single sign-on (SSO) feature and multifactor authentication (MFA) solutions. Finally, you will delve into API access management and discover how you can leverage Advanced Server Access for your cloud servers and Okta Access Gateway for your on-premises applications. By the end of this Okta book, you’ll have learned how to implement Okta to enhance your organization's security and be able to use this book as a reference guide for the Okta certification exam.
Publication date:
December 2020
Publisher
Packt
Pages
268
ISBN
9781800566644

 
 

Exploring the origins of Okta

Okta was started by Todd McKinnon (CEO) and Frederic Kerrest (COO), former Salesforce employees. They saw that the cloud wasn't just a product for the big leagues. They predicted it would be necessary for anyone who would want to grow their business. They started the business in the middle of the 2008 recession, with Andreessen Horowitz investing as one of the first capital injections for Okta in 2010. In 2017, Okta went public with its IPO and valuation of $1.2 billion.

The name Okta is derived from the unit of measurement for clouds covering the sky at any given moment. On the scale, 0 okta is a clear blue sky and 8 oktas is completely overcast. The wordplay of Okta (in Greek, octa is 8) and the fact that Okta wants to cover all of the cloud access by becoming the identity standard, thus creating a completely overcast sky (8 oktas), is well thought out.

Since Okta came into the space of IAM, they have steadily grown to the leading vector...

 

Exploring Okta

A complete user and system management setup isn't just in one product, nor is it one vendor. A complete view of all sections within and outside of the organization is best done by utilizing different tools.

This combination and their deep integrations make it possible to create a fine-knit layer of security and insights on top of everything, flexible enough to allow exceptions, but strong enough to fight off anything considered harmful to the users, content, data, or organization.

An IAM system can be seen as a collection of different elements and tools to deliver this. It can be considered that the following functionalities are part of, but not limited to, an organization's toolkit:

  • A password vault to store and maintain access to applications and systems. This can be advanced by using protocols that allow Single Sign-On (SSO).
  • Provisioning integrations to create and manage user identities within directories, applications, databases, and...
 

Discovering Okta's basic features

Okta has a lot of different products, and organizations can pick and choose as they see fit. The most commonly used are the following:

  • Universal Directory (UD)
  • SSO
  • Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (AMFA)
  • Lifecycle Management (LCM)

It's not always obvious in the administrator portal where one product starts and another one ends. This will be clarified in this book. The products will all be explained with practical examples in the coming chapters, but here is an initial overview.

Universal Directory

UD can be considered as the foundation of any Okta setup. UD is the directory of your users and groups. Users can be mastered by Okta, by other directories, or by an HR system. For organizations with multiple directories, such as AD, LDAP, and an HR system, Okta offers a complete 360 view of the users and their attributes. Users can be sorted into groups created in Okta and imported from a directory or...

 

Okta's advanced features

If your organization needs to go deeper than general IAM, you might need to look at Okta's more advanced features.

Okta Advanced Server Access

Okta ASA lets us extend our zero-trust practices toward server accounts. Okta can manage access to both user or service accounts to Linux or Windows servers across different cloud vendors, such as GCP, AWS, and Azure, or on-premises servers. In Okta, your admins get a great overview of who has access to what and can see individual logins in log reports. ASA works with a lightweight agent and is installed in your infrastructure landscape.

Okta Access Gateway

Okta Access Gateway (OAG) makes it possible to implement modern cloud-based access management to legacy on-premises applications. With this product, you can gather all your identity needs in one place, making it easier to manage. It's easy to integrate, with templates and native on-premises integrations. By replacing your current Web Access...

 

Summary

In this chapter, we learned basic details about IAM and how Okta works as a great solution to any IAM needs. We've learned about the scenarios in which Okta emerges as an IAM solution. Finally, we learned about the features of Okta and how they work with various platforms to give us dynamic control over user accounts within our organizations. All of this information forms the basis of our understanding for the rest of the book, where we will take a deeper look at Okta and how to make use of all its features.

In the next chapter, we will learn how to work with UD by setting it up and configuring it. We will learn how to add or import users and explore the most important features and policies to help us use UD efficiently.

About the Authors
  • Lovisa Stenbäcken Stjernlöf

    Lovisa has been with Devoteam for over 4 years, working with multiple cloud vendors during that period. Starting out as a Project Manager, gaining certifications within G Suite and Salesforce, it was a natural step to start helping customers with their complete cloud setup, including Okta. Apart from customer work, she also has experience with management, both in resources and budget. With several Okta implementations under her belt and an Okta Professional certification in the bag, she now heads the Okta practice within Devoteam.

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  • HenkJan de Vries

    HenkJan has extensive experience with Okta, being an Okta partner engineer for over 5 years. With a long history of both implementing and supporting many Okta customers, he understands what long term requirements look like, but also the day to day management within organizations. Currently, he is strategically supporting customers to reach all their Okta potential. HenkJan is a certified consultant and is currently part of the exclusive SME group within Okta. Besides his business-related reach, he also enjoys helping unknown and uncontracted customers on several community boards, and by doing so, he has been named an Okta Advocate in 2019 and an Okta Community Leader in 2020.

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Okta Administration: Up and Running
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