Okta Tutorial

Okta Tutorial: What is Okta, Features, and Benefits

Welcome to Okta Tutorial! If you want to gain a clear overview of the Okta platform, you have come to the right place. Cloud has become an internal part of organizations to meet the evolving needs of organizations and sustain in this competition. Moving from on-premises to Cloud has brought advantages to the organizations, but there are multiple challenges.

Cloud migration requires constant monitoring because organizations have to integrate and adapt with multiple cloud-based applications. Here security becomes a big challenge, and that’s not easy to manage. Inadequate security measures leave organizations prone to data breaches.

Accessing Cloud and applications needs a practical and modern identity management system. But the traditional data access management solutions are not good enough to handle the evolving data breaches and hinder business growth. Here comes the Okta platform, which allows the right users to access the correct information and stops data breaches.

Following are the Concepts that we are going to Cover in this Okta Tutorial:

  • What is cloud Identity & Access Management?
  • What is Okta?
  • What is Okta Identity Engine?
  • Okta Features
  • Benefits of Okta
  • Conclusion

What is cloud Identity & Access Management?

Identity and access management is a set of security standards that allows suitable candidates to access the right resources at the right time for the proper purpose.  IAM platforms simplify accessibility in a secured way to multiple complex heterogeneous environments. 

Companies have become more Cloud-centric, and traditional IAM platforms have failed to manage access management. Here come the cloud-based IAM solutions that act as a one-stop solution for managing any identity.

What is Okta?

Okta is an enterprise-grade cloud Identity management platform that connects any person to any application on any device. Apart from cloud apps, it works perfectly with on-premises applications as well. Okta enables the IT managers to manage employee access to all organizational resources and applications effectively. Okta runs in the Cloud on a secured platform and is integrated with on-premises directories, applications, and identity management systems.

The Okta platform has been designed to address the multiple issues associated with increasing devices, security, identity challenges, vendor partnership, employee mobility, growth of applications, etc. Okta offers advanced features like provisioning, Active Directory (AD) Single Sign-On (SSO), multi-factor authentication, LDAP integration, flexible policies, mobile identity management, and a lot more.

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What is Okta Identity Engine?

Okta Identity Engine allows the users to customize their okta cloud components to full-fill the wide range of identity use cases. This component eliminates the need to rely on pre-defined authentication and provides users with customizable building blocks to provide user journeys.

Okta Features:

Okta comes with a list of advanced features to fulfill the modern identity and access management.

Following are the top Okta features: 

1) Universal Directory

Okta comes with a cloud-based flexible repository that allows the users to organize, parameterize and manage user attributes. The universal directory offers a single source of truth, simplifies information exchange, user profile extension, allows easy integration of multiple profiles.

2) Single-Sign-On (SSO)

Okta provides you Single-Sign-On (SSO) accessibility to on-premise, Cloud, and mobile applications. Once you logged into Okta, you can access any application without re-entering credentials. Okta establishes a secure connection with any browser and then allows users to access applications.

Okta provides a secure and straightforward way to access any applications on the Cloud using Okta Integration Network (OIN). You can also integrate on-premises web applications  SWA for SSO, SAML toolkits. It also provides easy integration for all types of apps, whether they are android or iOS.

3) Okta Provisioning

Okta offers advanced Lifecycle management features to automate user account management processes. In Okta, the System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) functionality is being used to support actions between Okta and on-premises or Cloud-based applications.

For Cloud, you can either use a pre-built Okta Integration Network (OIN) or use a custom API connection to support users between Okta and Cloud. And for on-premises provisioning, you can use web services API or Active Directory to manage application user accounts.

4) Okta Mobility Management

Okta Mobility Management enhances access management and trust identity to provide high protection to data, people, and apps right from the directories to any mobile device. Using Okta Mobile Management, IT can manage different access policies from a central cloud-based console.

Okta Mobility Management allows you to build contextual user access to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the endpoints. In simple words, it restricts unauthorized users from accessing and provides a straightforward way for authorized users.

5) Okta MFA (Multi Factor Authentication)

Multi-Factor authentication is a next-generation security feature offered by Okta. It acts as an added layer of security that helps verify end users whenever they try to access an application. Okta admin can configure the MFA at the application or organization level.

Benefits of Okta:

Following are some of the notable advantages that we get from using Okta Identity management platform.

Single Sign-on

Simple integration of SEP for all types of web-based and mobile applications with extendable access policy and feradaration engine.

Simple Interface:

Okta offers a simplified and customizable interface to access any application.

Secured Directory

Okta facilitates flexible integration to LDAP/AD and offers self-service password reset functionality on AD/LDAP.

Real-time data:

Okta offers features to explore real-time login information with geolocation tracking, SIEM integration, and pre-installed application access reports.

Advanced Authentication

Eliminates access to applications and data breaches by providing multi-factor authentication.

Conclusion:

Okta has become a top Identity and access management platform within a short period with its advanced features to protect user authentication. The deployment rate of the Okta platform has constantly been growing by organizations to protect themselves from data breaches. You can also check out our Okta Interview Questions blog to gain confidence to clear your interview. There is also a good demand for professionals who possess a finite amount of knowledge of the Okta platform. Keep learning, and all the very best!

Author Bio

Yamuna
Yamuna

Yamuna Karumuri is a content writer at CourseDrill. Her passion lies in writing articles on the IT platforms including Machine learning, Workday, Sailpoint, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Selenium, MSBI, and so on. You can connect with her via LinkedIn.

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