I’ve worked at Esri for 13 years, and I’ve had this blog for over 10 years. Despite those facts, I’ve never blogged about my job. This post will venture into some new territory, and with that I would like to state that the postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Esri’s positions, strategies or opinions.
In February 2013 I took on the role of Identity and Access Management (IAM) Team Lead at Esri. The teams focus was on consolidating user stores and account systems across the enterprise. Along with consolidation, improving the end user experience and hardening security or both internal staff and external customers was also key. Very large goals.
Enterprise identity management is difficult. It’s a balance of IT infrastructure, user account management, and security. In today’s world we all know the problems that happen when one of those areas is compromised and user accounts or data is leaked.
My team reviewed many IAM solutions, and ultimately selected Okta. It’s been an awesome experience. There is only a hand full of companies that I’m a complete fan boy for, and Okta is one of them – along with Shopify and Apple.
I feel that Okta has help me change our Enterprise IT for the better. It’s allowed us to be more agile and enabled better collaborate with our colleagues around the world. Our needs have pushed the Okta platform into some new areas, and Okta staff has always been there to support us. We have grown together.
Last week Okta held their annual conference – Oktane, in San Francisco. As part of the keynote presentation Okta presents awards to recognize organizations and individuals that have taken major leaps into the Okta platform.
I’m proud to say that the Esri IAM team won the 2014 Okta Atlas Award
“The Atlas Award celebrates the customer teams that have effectively extended Okta and are “doing it all,” this award is given to those who take all on their shoulders like the primordial Titan, to cover the identities of their employees, customers, partners or other external users alike.”
I shared the award along with my friend and teammate from Esri, Ramchand Rao. Gaston Zilleruelo of Amway was also presented with the award.
Ramchand and I may have accepted the award on stage, but it also belongs to the other members of the Esri IAM team, Aaron Asencio and Alagukannan Alagappan. We’re a small team but we’ve pulled off some amazing things together.
I truly think that cloud Identity and Access Management is the future, and Okta is leading that charge.
You can read more about the Okta conference and the winners of other Okta awards here – https://www.okta.com/blog/2014/11/celebrating_customers_partners_oktane14/