is
2020/10/22
 
22 Oct, 2020 | 3 min read

New Independent Research Cites WSO2 Identity Server as a Strong Performer in Customer Identity and Access Management

  • Ishara Karunarathna
  • Associate Technical Lead - WSO2

We're thrilled that WSO2 Identity Server has been named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Identity and Access Management, Q4 2020 report published on October 8, 2020. The report’s findings were based on a 32-criteria evaluation of the 13 software vendors that Forrester identified as the most significant customer identity and access management (CIAM) providers. You can access the report at https://wso2.com/resources/analyst-reports/the-forrester-wave-customer-identity-and-access-management-q4-2020/

Developing CIAM solutions has increasingly become a developer’s task, moving away from the traditional identity administrator who manages user accounts and access privileges. With the proliferation of devices, the shift towards digital transformation, and the need to understand the customer journey better, identity and access management plays a pivotal role in making sense of identity data with the use of developer-friendly CIAM solutions.

In the Current Offering category of The Forrester Wave™: Customer Identity and Access Management, Q4 2020, WSO2 received scores of 5.0, the highest rating possible, in eight criteria (customer authentication; business systems integration; data orchestration and user management; customer self-service; reporting and dashboarding; privacy, consent management, and profiling; number of brands; and static and contextual documentation).

In the Strategy category, WSO2 Identity Server obtained the highest scores possible in the authentication plans; data orchestration, workflows, and user management; and commercial model criteria.

Vendor Inclusion Criteria

Not all IAM vendors in the market are included in the report. Forrester Research, Inc. considered the following four inclusion criteria in selecting the companies it identified as the 13 most significant CIAM providers.

  • A thought-leading, productized portfolio of products and services

Demonstrated thought leadership and solution strategy execution by regularly updating and improving the productized product and model portfolio. Customers of vendors had to report that the solution is purpose-built for customer-facing identity and access management.

  • Annual CIAM revenues of at least $4 million, with at least 9.5% growth

WSO2 Identity Server itself generates USD 10M+ in revenue, with 700+ global customers (direct and OEM), and 1000+ open source deployments.

  • Mindshare with Forrester’s end user customers

Selected vendors are frequently mentioned in Forrester end-user client inquiries, vendor selection RFPs, shortlists, consulting projects, and case studies.

  • Mindshare with vendors

Selected vendors are frequently noted by other vendors during Forrester briefings as viable and formidable competitors.

Key Takeaways From the Report

In addition to foundational CIAM requirements, such as customer authentication, self-service features, data-orchestration, and user management, the report notes that, “Consent management, identity verification, and scalability are key differentiators. As older CIAM solutions become less effective at meeting the rapidly evolving security and privacy requirements of digital customer acquisition and retention processes, vendors that can provide comprehensive consent management, productized integration with identity verification, and scalability position themselves to deliver frictionless and delightful user management and accelerated time-to-value to customers and succeed in this market.”

Some things to consider:

  • WSO2 achieved the highest score possible in the privacy, consent management, and profiling criterion. This is important for recording, managing, and reviewing users’ consents, as well as anonymizing or deleting data based on user requests.
  • In terms of scalability, the solution currently manages more than 250 million identities in over 60 countries in various verticals, including government, health, education, retail telco, and more. WSO2 Identity Server also has the highest possible score in the number of brands [managed for a single customer] criterion.
  • WSO2 Identity Server can onboard any identity verification services by supporting productized integration with verification platforms, like Evident ID, and building an extension. IDV using blockchain is a part of our long-term roadmap for both our on-premises and SaaS offering.
  • In addition to Forrester’s recommendation, we believe firms should also look for strong customer authentication, business systems integration, customer self-service for CIAM—criteria for which we have achieved the highest scores possible in the Forrester CIAM Wave.

What Forrester Says About WSO2 Identity Server

Here are some quotes from the report.

  • “WSO2 assembles open source and proprietary pieces into a versatile CIAM platform.”

Note: While WSO2’s software is open-source, connectors to proprietary third-party systems are included in the WSO2 Identity Server ecosystem.

  • “WSO2’s CIAM solution comes from its identity management and governance platform. It has always focused on API- and standards-based IAM and comes with a comprehensive reference architecture.”
  • “The vendor plans to launch a developer focused software-as-a-service (SaaS) CIAM cloud, introduce a hybrid cloud offering for customers that can’t move their customer information to the cloud, and use machine learning (ML) and behavioral analytics to enable the CIAM solution to aid customers’ A/B testing efforts.”
  • “The solution supports FIDO2 and offers full REST API support for integration that customers said was fairly easy to use.”

WSO2 Identity Server: Your Trusted Solution for CIAM

WSO2 Identity Server is a leading provider of IAM solutions that help to create agile CIAM solutions by federating, authenticating, and unifying identities while connecting users to applications, APIs, and systems.

It is a uniquely extensible, API-driven, cloud-native IAM product designed for developers that build CIAM solutions. The open-source WSO2 Identity Server incorporates the functionality to federate, authenticate and manage identities; bridge across heterogeneous identity protocols; and secure access to web and mobile applications along with API-based endpoints. We have over 12 years of experience in building CIAM solutions for more than 700+ customers globally. We also have a wide partner ecosystem with over 150 partners spread across 71 different markets.

For more information, please visit our product page. Please keep in touch via our Slack channel (https://wso2is.slack.com) and the community Twitter account (@wso2iscommunity).

Undefined