1 Introduction
In the late 1990’s electronic provisioning was first introduced ushering in the beginning of Identity Management (IdM). Within a few years, account provisioning was joined with Simplified/Single Sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other services which were collectively called Identity and Access Management (IAM).
Over time other disciplines have been added to this sector – including Access Governance and Intelligence, Dynamic Authorization Management, risk- and context-based Authentication and Authorization and Cloud Identity Services all taken together to form IAM/IAG (Identity Access Management/Identity Access Governance).
In reviewing products in this category, we favor what are called “suites”, a term that is different from “package” or “bundle” in the sense that, from our understanding, a suite is defined as an integrated solution. Thus, when comparing offerings, we have put emphasis on integration at various levels, such as
- Platform support and deployment models
- Administrative user interfaces
- End user interfaces
- Data models
- APIs
- Deployment
Avatier was one of the pioneers in IAM movement and is, today, the only one of the original players to survive as an independent vendor. Avatier also pioneered the concept of a modular suite for its IAM/IAG products, one of the first vendors to do so.
Reinforcing its commitment to the modular suite concept, all of the parts of the Avatier Suite are “home grown”, developed by its own engineers in-house. Few, if any, of its competitors can say the same.
Founded in 1997 in Pleasanton, California, USA, Avatier – still privately held – has shown steady, if sometimes slow, growth over its history and currently serves over 500 clients. Early on, KuppingerCole thought that Avatier was hampered by its US-centric orientation which meant a less than optimal world-wide ecosystem. Recently, however, the company has established offices in Munich, Dublin, London, and Singapore as well as having concluded numerous partnerships to bring better service worldwide.
