1 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:07,800 Do you know who has access to what? 2 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:11,480 If you are looking for identity and access management talk, you 3 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:14,480 have come to the right place. This is the Identity at the 4 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:22,080 Center podcast host Jeff Steadman and Jim McDonald are 5 00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:25,200 strategic advisors with the dentropies advisory Services 6 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:28,480 practice and are here to talk about a wide range of identity 7 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:36,140 and access management. Topics, comments, questions and 8 00:00:36,140 --> 00:00:39,180 accolades can all be sent to identity@thecenter.com. 9 00:00:39,300 --> 00:00:52,100 And now on to the show. So today we've got a special 10 00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:54,100 guest, Luis Almeida. He's. 11 00:00:54,690 --> 00:00:57,010 VP of Business Development here at Edentropy. 12 00:00:57,210 --> 00:01:00,050 And we thought it would be interesting to have him on to 13 00:01:00,050 --> 00:01:03,130 talk a little bit about how the value proposition of identity 14 00:01:03,130 --> 00:01:05,010 management has changed. And I know that this is 15 00:01:05,010 --> 00:01:08,250 something that's been near and dear to his heart for a while. 16 00:01:08,450 --> 00:01:11,890 And we've also got Jim McDonald here too, guys, you want to say? 17 00:01:14,010 --> 00:01:18,290 Hey guys, Jim McDonald here. I'm really excited about having 18 00:01:18,290 --> 00:01:21,530 Luis on. Luis has been a veteran in our 19 00:01:21,530 --> 00:01:24,240 industry. For many, many years. 20 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:26,240 I'm not going to steal his Thunder by doing his 21 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,960 introduction, but you know he's worked at several identity and 22 00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:33,800 access management because companies in the past. 23 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:37,960 And so he has a really good unique perspective on the 24 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:40,120 industry and he's really good at telling stories. 25 00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:43,200 So Louise, why don't you do a quick introduction of yourself? 26 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:45,840 Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jeff. 27 00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:49,600 So it's for me. It's a pleasure to be here 28 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:53,560 because. The respect I have for the real 29 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:56,600 practitioners in the space, right, and then especially Jim 30 00:01:56,600 --> 00:02:00,200 and Jeff who have done it, they've been on the other side 31 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,520 of the table really managing programs and doing the hard 32 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,360 work. You know, so these are people 33 00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:08,840 that, that that I have a great deal of respect for. 34 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:15,880 I think the really good sales people are the ones that try not 35 00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:19,640 to speak, try try to give the customers a lot of space and 36 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:22,250 listen. So this is a little bit 37 00:02:22,250 --> 00:02:25,050 uncomfortable for me, but but I'll do my best and I and I 38 00:02:25,050 --> 00:02:27,450 really appreciate the kind introduction guys. 39 00:02:28,490 --> 00:02:31,130 I think this is a model opening for all of our guests. 40 00:02:31,170 --> 00:02:33,530 If they can show the appropriate amount of deference to Jim and 41 00:02:33,570 --> 00:02:35,490 I, everything is just going to go great. 42 00:02:36,810 --> 00:02:37,970 Yeah. And I really mean it. 43 00:02:37,970 --> 00:02:42,490 So, so thanks for having me. But you know, as Jim was saying, 44 00:02:42,770 --> 00:02:46,890 I've been in the space really 15 years over the over 15 years. 45 00:02:48,140 --> 00:02:53,540 I got my start at CA back back when it was Computer Associates. 46 00:02:53,540 --> 00:02:59,340 I was a storage guy really selling backups that, you know, 47 00:02:59,340 --> 00:03:02,700 you could do the backup but then you couldn't restore, which was 48 00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:04,740 really a horrible business to be in. 49 00:03:05,420 --> 00:03:09,940 And a good friend of mine, Mark Potter, who ran Identity for the 50 00:03:09,940 --> 00:03:13,910 Southeast for CA at that time. He heard me on the phone banging 51 00:03:13,910 --> 00:03:16,990 away trying to help customers and he said I want you to come 52 00:03:16,990 --> 00:03:20,310 join the security team. And I looked at him and said I 53 00:03:20,310 --> 00:03:22,030 think you're crazy. There's absolutely no way. 54 00:03:22,030 --> 00:03:24,230 I know nothing about security. And I picked up the phone and 55 00:03:24,230 --> 00:03:27,030 kept dialing and and he insisted and it was the best thing that 56 00:03:27,030 --> 00:03:31,590 ever happened to me in my life. And so I was there for eight 57 00:03:31,590 --> 00:03:34,710 years. I was very successful selling 58 00:03:34,790 --> 00:03:37,390 sight minder and CA identity manager. 59 00:03:37,390 --> 00:03:40,510 And you know, we used to say we'd sell out of a hole because 60 00:03:40,510 --> 00:03:43,310 people. One always pleased with their 61 00:03:43,310 --> 00:03:46,710 experience with CA, so we really had to work hard there. 62 00:03:47,230 --> 00:03:50,510 And after eight years, Mark left CA and went to join the team at 63 00:03:50,510 --> 00:03:52,950 Quest Software. He started the Identity and 64 00:03:52,950 --> 00:03:59,710 Access management team and I was his first hire at Quest and that 65 00:03:59,710 --> 00:04:02,770 was kind of a. A risk for me because Quest had 66 00:04:02,770 --> 00:04:06,170 just acquired Volcker Informatica, a German identity 67 00:04:06,170 --> 00:04:09,370 and access management company. You know, we knew Quest is a 68 00:04:09,370 --> 00:04:13,130 tools company, 80 management, and we went over there and we 69 00:04:13,130 --> 00:04:15,650 actually did relatively well. We were there for, I was there 70 00:04:15,650 --> 00:04:18,610 for three years and then we suffered through a process where 71 00:04:18,610 --> 00:04:21,089 Vinny Smith was going to take Quest private. 72 00:04:22,210 --> 00:04:25,850 And then Michael Dell said, no, you're not, we're coming in and 73 00:04:25,850 --> 00:04:29,090 buying you. Michael Dell's engine spoke 74 00:04:29,090 --> 00:04:32,530 louder. And we ended up going to work 75 00:04:32,530 --> 00:04:36,130 for Dell and that Dell, you know, large large sales 76 00:04:36,130 --> 00:04:38,530 organization. I felt Identity was going to get 77 00:04:38,530 --> 00:04:42,010 lost in the shuffle. Identity being such a specific 78 00:04:42,010 --> 00:04:45,210 thing to sell in position that that I left Dell and was 79 00:04:45,210 --> 00:04:48,850 fortunate enough to come join our team here at identropy. 80 00:04:48,850 --> 00:04:51,810 I've been here five years. It's just been for me just a 81 00:04:51,810 --> 00:04:55,490 tremendous experience. And the reason for that is, I 82 00:04:55,490 --> 00:04:58,770 think in the identity space, consulting services is so 83 00:04:58,770 --> 00:05:02,320 important. And you know the ability for us 84 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:07,400 to listen to the requirements a customer has and to be able to 85 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:13,040 position value beyond products, right, looking at programs and 86 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:16,600 and the stuff the advisory team does is just just easier. 87 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:19,040 It's more flexible, we can be of more service. 88 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:21,600 So. So that's it, that's that's 89 00:05:21,640 --> 00:05:23,640 that's my background and and here we are. 90 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:27,160 I think that's really interesting, Louise. 91 00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:30,480 You're there kind of in the the early days of identity 92 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,600 management and you know the approach has changed so much 93 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:39,640 over time and the vendor landscape has changed over time. 94 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:45,640 I think that's been driven a lot by the the value proposition for 95 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:50,560 customers and I was hoping you could maybe talk about was kind 96 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:53,800 of walk us through that history. So where were customers getting 97 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:57,010 value? Of and what was driving their 98 00:05:57,010 --> 00:06:00,850 investment say 10 to 15 years ago and how's it changed over 99 00:06:00,850 --> 00:06:03,090 time? Sure. 100 00:06:03,090 --> 00:06:06,690 So you know I'm, I'm, I'm somewhat a big fan of the 101 00:06:06,690 --> 00:06:09,810 Gartner product hype cycle, right. 102 00:06:09,810 --> 00:06:13,570 So that's the curve that, you know, the the product increases 103 00:06:13,570 --> 00:06:17,850 in hype over time and then it, you know, dips down into a 104 00:06:17,850 --> 00:06:21,770 trough of disillusionment, starts to slowly go back up and 105 00:06:21,770 --> 00:06:24,090 then goes into the plateau of productivity. 106 00:06:24,830 --> 00:06:28,310 So I would say that I missed the upturn towards the peak. 107 00:06:28,390 --> 00:06:32,110 I really joined the identity space really at the peak of the 108 00:06:32,110 --> 00:06:34,750 hype, right. That's when CA acquired 109 00:06:34,750 --> 00:06:36,510 Integrity. All these other acquisitions 110 00:06:36,510 --> 00:06:41,390 were going on and and identity, they really weren't identity 111 00:06:41,390 --> 00:06:44,910 practitioners really I mean but the people really had high hopes 112 00:06:44,910 --> 00:06:50,950 for identity and at that time what we were telling customers. 113 00:06:51,620 --> 00:06:54,300 Is and we believe this and I think it's really important to 114 00:06:54,300 --> 00:06:58,300 say you know the people that I know that do well in sales and 115 00:06:58,300 --> 00:07:01,500 in in service providing and and helping others, you know they 116 00:07:01,500 --> 00:07:04,460 come from a from a place of sincerity, right. 117 00:07:05,020 --> 00:07:08,700 The the place is one of helping and you get paid and and you're 118 00:07:08,700 --> 00:07:13,220 going to make money but if your heart has to be in a in a mode 119 00:07:13,220 --> 00:07:15,420 of helping. So I would go out to my 120 00:07:15,420 --> 00:07:18,500 customers when I first got hired and and and and try to help 121 00:07:18,500 --> 00:07:20,830 them. And what everybody expected that 122 00:07:20,830 --> 00:07:25,430 we were going to help them with was something called automagic 123 00:07:25,430 --> 00:07:26,910 provisioning. Okay. 124 00:07:27,310 --> 00:07:34,230 We were going to give everybody access to the systems they 125 00:07:34,230 --> 00:07:38,430 needed programmatically, with the right permissions and 126 00:07:38,430 --> 00:07:41,430 entitlements across thousands of applications. 127 00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:45,360 And it was really an IT optimization value proposition 128 00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,600 and it was something we were sure we were going to be able to 129 00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:49,320 do. We were all setting out to do 130 00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:52,800 it. And you know that really it was 131 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,960 a, it was a it was a value around making people's jobs 132 00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:59,480 easier and of course enhancing security because you're you're 133 00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:01,520 somewhat facilitating, least privileged. 134 00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:07,280 And Louise, if I could jump in for a second, these are the 135 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:09,720 early days of Active Directory, right? 136 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:13,290 So you're going back around? 03/04 time frame. 137 00:08:13,290 --> 00:08:16,930 I think Active Directory really started with Windows 2000 so it 138 00:08:16,930 --> 00:08:21,410 took some time to get established and within the 139 00:08:21,410 --> 00:08:25,890 enterprise walls wasn't like, you know, people set up Active 140 00:08:25,890 --> 00:08:28,930 Directory and they integrated 200 applications into it. 141 00:08:28,930 --> 00:08:32,929 So if you automated Active Directory, you're good to go on 142 00:08:33,690 --> 00:08:35,530 a large part of your IT landscape. 143 00:08:36,049 --> 00:08:39,530 This is the days where applications for the most part. 144 00:08:39,870 --> 00:08:42,990 Each had their own username and password, those usernames to 145 00:08:42,990 --> 00:08:46,670 vary things like that. So from my recollection and kind 146 00:08:46,670 --> 00:08:51,350 of being in that space and being a a practitioner, it was about, 147 00:08:51,350 --> 00:08:55,630 wow, we've got this Wild West of of Access is being managed in 148 00:08:55,630 --> 00:08:58,870 different ways across different applications and there was not a 149 00:08:58,870 --> 00:09:01,790 central identity store for the most part. 150 00:09:03,350 --> 00:09:06,950 Yeah, I do remember it that way. And and and the way I remember 151 00:09:06,950 --> 00:09:10,550 it, really. To me, which is really symbolic 152 00:09:10,550 --> 00:09:14,190 of that time, we're all the role engineering exercises, right? 153 00:09:15,590 --> 00:09:20,430 People would get locked in a conference room for years and 154 00:09:20,430 --> 00:09:23,710 Ernst and Young or Accenture, whoever would come in and just 155 00:09:23,710 --> 00:09:27,590 do these huge role engineering exercises to create these 156 00:09:27,590 --> 00:09:31,870 buckets of permissions that then we would use to to provision. 157 00:09:33,150 --> 00:09:36,030 I was very fortunate back then that. 158 00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:38,800 I met a good friend of mine. He's still a great friend of 159 00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:43,640 mine him and the model all. Who's the CEO of Simeo today And 160 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:48,520 you know I I linked up with him and that, you know, remember I 161 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:50,120 was a storage guy. I didn't really know what I was 162 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:52,240 talking about so I'd let him do all the talking. 163 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:55,800 We always led with this concept of role engineering, right? 164 00:09:55,800 --> 00:10:00,920 You need to know what you're going to provision and. 165 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:04,200 That's what we led with. And I think Jim, you know we 166 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:05,560 weren't looking at groups, right. 167 00:10:05,560 --> 00:10:07,920 We were really looking at what were those entitlements, 168 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:11,440 permissions inside of the application and it was very 169 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,520 large services projects in a large enterprise and they were 170 00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:18,840 very challenging. Yeah, and a lot of, a lot of 171 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:22,000 mainframes to be quite frank, you know, legacy systems, 172 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:24,320 applications that were hard to integrate with. 173 00:10:25,110 --> 00:10:26,270 Yeah. That was, that was my 174 00:10:26,270 --> 00:10:29,270 background, you know when I was in first getting involved in 175 00:10:29,270 --> 00:10:31,350 IEM, was with Walgreens way back when. 176 00:10:31,430 --> 00:10:35,230 And you know there were four of us who were responsible for 177 00:10:35,270 --> 00:10:39,750 creating mainframe accounts, Lotus Notes, e-mail accounts, 178 00:10:40,590 --> 00:10:43,350 which is a total nightmare to try and do anything with when it 179 00:10:43,390 --> 00:10:46,030 was IEM as I found out later on in my career. 180 00:10:46,030 --> 00:10:49,090 But. But yeah, it was very, it was 181 00:10:49,090 --> 00:10:52,250 very account based and we hadn't even considered really the 182 00:10:52,250 --> 00:10:56,290 concept of roles at that point. This would have been, yeah, 183 00:10:56,290 --> 00:10:58,610 early early 2000s. We're going through that 184 00:10:58,610 --> 00:11:01,610 process. But it's funny, we didn't really 185 00:11:01,610 --> 00:11:03,970 even consider an I M tool at that point. 186 00:11:03,970 --> 00:11:07,410 Even though we were a fairly centralized team, there were 187 00:11:07,410 --> 00:11:10,330 still only four of us, you know, for this entire, you know, 188 00:11:10,330 --> 00:11:12,770 pharmacy chain essentially handling all the corporate 189 00:11:12,770 --> 00:11:16,050 enterprise stuff. It took a few years as we 190 00:11:16,050 --> 00:11:21,210 started to really skyrocket from a access need perspective within 191 00:11:21,210 --> 00:11:23,370 the organization to recognize and need that okay. 192 00:11:23,370 --> 00:11:25,490 We really need to start to figure out how we're going to 193 00:11:25,490 --> 00:11:29,530 scale because Slas become a concern and. 194 00:11:29,870 --> 00:11:33,150 You know, this is, this is back in the old days where, you know, 195 00:11:33,150 --> 00:11:36,270 it's Friday and we're all working out of 1 mailbox and 196 00:11:36,270 --> 00:11:38,030 there's literally nothing to do, right? 197 00:11:38,030 --> 00:11:40,790 So we're fighting over tickets to see who's going to grab it, 198 00:11:40,950 --> 00:11:42,510 who's going to grab the e-mail because there's something to do 199 00:11:42,510 --> 00:11:44,470 because otherwise you're really kind of just sitting there 200 00:11:45,070 --> 00:11:47,590 because of the man wasn't there. You know, flash forward a decade 201 00:11:47,590 --> 00:11:49,870 and you know, you've got thousands of tickets in a queue 202 00:11:49,870 --> 00:11:51,710 and, you know, you're managing a group of people. 203 00:11:51,710 --> 00:11:55,750 But it really was kind of a very simple time from an I M 204 00:11:55,750 --> 00:11:58,730 perspective. And and this conversation is 205 00:11:58,730 --> 00:12:01,130 really reassuring, right, because we really didn't know 206 00:12:01,130 --> 00:12:04,730 what we were doing. You know, we had a yeah, we had 207 00:12:05,450 --> 00:12:08,050 we had a vision and and we thought we knew where we were 208 00:12:08,050 --> 00:12:10,010 going. And together we tried to solve 209 00:12:10,010 --> 00:12:15,250 problems. But what that time became was a 210 00:12:15,250 --> 00:12:19,330 graveyard of failed implementations and unfulfilled 211 00:12:19,330 --> 00:12:25,850 promises and extremely disappointed customers and. 212 00:12:26,810 --> 00:12:29,410 You know, and a lot of hard working sales people, a lot of 213 00:12:29,410 --> 00:12:31,650 hard working consultants, they're trying to figure this 214 00:12:31,650 --> 00:12:34,370 thing out. That was the vision and it just 215 00:12:34,370 --> 00:12:38,330 wasn't working. And you know, a couple reasons 216 00:12:38,330 --> 00:12:39,610 for that. You know, you do your role 217 00:12:39,610 --> 00:12:41,730 engineering exercise. It took forever. 218 00:12:42,810 --> 00:12:46,890 You tried to do implementations where it was, you know, Big 219 00:12:46,890 --> 00:12:48,530 Bang. You try to do everything at 220 00:12:48,530 --> 00:12:51,770 once. There wasn't this concept of, 221 00:12:52,650 --> 00:12:56,690 you know. Delayed perfection, but what it 222 00:12:56,690 --> 00:12:59,170 what is it that Chad says all the time, you know, incremental 223 00:12:59,170 --> 00:13:02,210 progress which we really think about today. 224 00:13:04,090 --> 00:13:06,290 So there's a lot of field implementations, a lot of money 225 00:13:06,290 --> 00:13:09,370 spent. And you know, to this day we 226 00:13:09,370 --> 00:13:12,530 still see some remnants of that. I mean, there's some large 227 00:13:12,930 --> 00:13:16,210 organizations that are still suffering with a large 228 00:13:16,210 --> 00:13:19,970 investment sunk into an identity program that's connected to 229 00:13:19,970 --> 00:13:23,290 Active Directory and that's it after, you know. 230 00:13:23,690 --> 00:13:27,290 Five years, 10 years. So that was a tough time for all 231 00:13:27,290 --> 00:13:30,770 of us, I think. Why do you think from your, I'm 232 00:13:30,770 --> 00:13:33,450 curious to hear your perspective on this because I've been 233 00:13:33,450 --> 00:13:37,890 involved with implementations that have started off great 234 00:13:38,610 --> 00:13:42,890 having been on the customer side and then they die out and I know 235 00:13:42,890 --> 00:13:45,370 why those died out. It was a very good reason why 236 00:13:45,370 --> 00:13:47,090 I'm curious from your perspective. 237 00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:52,240 Where do you see the failure when it comes time to kind of 238 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,200 figure out post mortem, you know why? 239 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:57,080 Why is only Active Directory integrated with our I M system 240 00:13:57,080 --> 00:13:59,720 after, you know, two years, three years, whatever it may be? 241 00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:04,840 You know, I think that goes back to what the work you guys do. 242 00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:09,080 I always tell clients that if you enter the partnership with 243 00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:13,640 us in advisory, our chances of success are much higher and I 244 00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:17,080 think that is because we create executive support. 245 00:14:17,770 --> 00:14:20,130 And more so when you say, you know, executive support, that's 246 00:14:20,130 --> 00:14:22,250 kind of like a buzzword. What does that really mean? 247 00:14:22,650 --> 00:14:25,530 What that really means to me is making them understand how 248 00:14:25,530 --> 00:14:27,210 difficult this thing is. Going to be. 249 00:14:28,130 --> 00:14:32,130 And making them understand that we're going to need the 250 00:14:32,130 --> 00:14:35,330 cooperation of the application owners of HR. 251 00:14:35,610 --> 00:14:37,930 We're going to need the the cooperation across the 252 00:14:37,930 --> 00:14:40,690 enterprise. And I think what happens in our 253 00:14:40,690 --> 00:14:44,370 projects, they used to, if you don't manage them correctly, 254 00:14:44,370 --> 00:14:46,330 they'll happen. Now is people get tired. 255 00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:49,560 Right, the the project team gets tired. 256 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:53,160 They get tired of finding the political battle, and Active 257 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:55,840 Directory usually goes first. It's supposed to. 258 00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:58,000 Be one of the easier ones, right? 259 00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:02,200 And the AD team is one team. You go and you bang one team on 260 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:03,600 the head. But you know, you think about 261 00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:07,880 people that are trying to on board and and bring into the 262 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:11,240 identity program hundreds or thousands of applications and 263 00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:15,200 that's a long, a lot of difficult conversations for one 264 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:16,650 team to be having. Yeah. 265 00:15:17,490 --> 00:15:19,650 I think that exactly support one is an important one because in 266 00:15:19,650 --> 00:15:22,930 my mind that's money. I think when I think about where 267 00:15:22,930 --> 00:15:26,170 I was, you know, a decade ago and really kind of starting to 268 00:15:26,170 --> 00:15:29,530 roll out I M Systems, you know, for for the corporations that 269 00:15:29,530 --> 00:15:33,450 I've worked for, it seems like they were really only funded for 270 00:15:33,450 --> 00:15:36,010 a point in time, right in the next two to three years. 271 00:15:36,290 --> 00:15:39,330 There wasn't really much planning beyond that, you know, 272 00:15:39,330 --> 00:15:41,730 and and that's just something that you kind of have to think 273 00:15:41,730 --> 00:15:43,090 about is this is a program, not a project. 274 00:15:43,370 --> 00:15:45,770 Yeah, I I remember having a conversation with the guy. 275 00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:49,920 You know, he was like a director level professional, super go 276 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:51,440 getter. You know, he wanted to fix 277 00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:55,320 things and he called me and I was really just giving advice 278 00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:57,040 because he didn't want to buy services. 279 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:00,280 He didn't want to buy product. It was he had he'd been given by 280 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:02,880 Microsoft. I think at the time it was MIM 281 00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:05,290 or FIM. And he's like, I'm going to do 282 00:16:05,290 --> 00:16:07,210 this. And I said, look, man, I'm not 283 00:16:07,210 --> 00:16:09,450 trying to sell you anything, I promise you. 284 00:16:10,010 --> 00:16:12,530 But I'll tell you that if you embark on this journey by 285 00:16:12,530 --> 00:16:15,450 yourself, you were entering what I like to call a career 286 00:16:15,450 --> 00:16:20,170 Culdesac, because you're not going to be able to do anything. 287 00:16:20,650 --> 00:16:23,050 And people are going to have expectations because they're 288 00:16:23,050 --> 00:16:24,530 like, you've got the licenses for free. 289 00:16:24,530 --> 00:16:27,930 Why isn't this thing done? And you just aren't going to be 290 00:16:27,930 --> 00:16:30,170 able to do it on yourself? And I think that really 291 00:16:30,170 --> 00:16:34,410 resonated for him, you know? Free enterprise software is not 292 00:16:34,410 --> 00:16:36,210 free. That's what I found, you know. 293 00:16:36,490 --> 00:16:40,410 We see that a lot of times with, I've seen it personally with, 294 00:16:40,410 --> 00:16:44,010 you know, Oracle license or free from an IM perspective because 295 00:16:44,010 --> 00:16:45,730 they get databases or something like that. 296 00:16:45,970 --> 00:16:47,490 But there's a lot of implementation that goes along 297 00:16:47,490 --> 00:16:49,530 with it and there is that expectation that's free. 298 00:16:49,530 --> 00:16:50,850 Why didn't we have it up and running already? 299 00:16:51,010 --> 00:16:53,850 You know, there's a way way more to it, and that really applies 300 00:16:53,850 --> 00:16:57,980 to any software. So, so back in the day, it was 301 00:16:57,980 --> 00:17:00,500 super hard. We were trying to solve a super 302 00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:02,940 difficult problem. We didn't really understand 303 00:17:02,940 --> 00:17:05,859 exactly where we were doing. This whole coordination in the 304 00:17:05,859 --> 00:17:09,740 in the enterprise was difficult and we entered into what Gartner 305 00:17:09,740 --> 00:17:12,220 calls the Trophic disillusionment to the point 306 00:17:12,220 --> 00:17:15,260 that it wasn't just one meeting, it was several meetings that I 307 00:17:15,260 --> 00:17:19,220 went into that my sponsor said don't mention identity. 308 00:17:19,780 --> 00:17:22,140 You know, don't, don't, don't call this an identity project. 309 00:17:22,300 --> 00:17:24,980 And I I was like, what do you want to call it, man? 310 00:17:25,460 --> 00:17:28,660 You know, that was, that was an interesting point in time. 311 00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:33,220 And then I remember being in an event and my good friend, I'll 312 00:17:33,220 --> 00:17:36,940 mention him again, Mark Potter pointed to a booth and he said, 313 00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:39,060 oh, that's a Vexa. That's hot stuff. 314 00:17:39,540 --> 00:17:41,500 And next to a Vexa was sale point. 315 00:17:41,580 --> 00:17:43,740 And I'd never heard of a Vexa in sale point. 316 00:17:43,820 --> 00:17:47,620 You know, I had been competing with IBM and Oracle. 317 00:17:49,750 --> 00:17:52,110 And I got in and ignored it. You know, it's never really a 318 00:17:52,110 --> 00:17:53,950 visionary. I was really, you know, I sold 319 00:17:53,950 --> 00:17:56,430 the cars that were on the lot and did what I had to do. 320 00:17:56,430 --> 00:18:00,510 But lo and behold, those dangers were going to become very close 321 00:18:00,510 --> 00:18:03,030 to me. And so I, I, I, I really be 322 00:18:03,390 --> 00:18:08,790 started competing with. And I think they played a major 323 00:18:08,790 --> 00:18:13,150 role in changing the story around identity. 324 00:18:16,810 --> 00:18:19,210 You know, so I'll keep going. I paused there for you guys to 325 00:18:19,210 --> 00:18:20,890 interject, but I'll keep going. So. 326 00:18:21,330 --> 00:18:23,130 I was trying to think of a way to disagree with you, but no, 327 00:18:23,130 --> 00:18:23,890 you're right. Yeah. 328 00:18:25,370 --> 00:18:26,530 It was two. There were two of them. 329 00:18:26,530 --> 00:18:32,130 So and at that same time, which was really interesting was there 330 00:18:32,130 --> 00:18:36,930 was something happened called Sarbanes-Oxley was just about at 331 00:18:36,930 --> 00:18:39,850 that same time as well. And this isn't my quote. 332 00:18:39,850 --> 00:18:42,690 This is I was at his conference and I heard somebody say this 333 00:18:42,690 --> 00:18:44,850 what it must have been 12 years ago or so. 334 00:18:45,350 --> 00:18:48,750 That the best identity sales guys were Sarbanes and Oxley, 335 00:18:48,870 --> 00:18:52,630 right. They really got our space moving 336 00:18:53,470 --> 00:18:57,670 and it was at the time where AVEXA and Sale Point entered and 337 00:18:58,190 --> 00:19:01,390 pretty much what AVEX and Sale Point did was they said you know 338 00:19:01,390 --> 00:19:04,470 what this stuff right here that I, BM, Oracle and CA are trying 339 00:19:04,470 --> 00:19:07,310 to do, that's really hard, you know and that's not really where 340 00:19:07,310 --> 00:19:11,070 the value is. We're not looking for, we're not 341 00:19:11,070 --> 00:19:14,550 looking to make IT people's jobs easier. 342 00:19:15,260 --> 00:19:20,820 We need to keep the CFO out of jail and we need to allow 343 00:19:21,540 --> 00:19:27,060 accountability for access to be moved from IT down into the 344 00:19:27,060 --> 00:19:29,780 business. And that's when the value 345 00:19:29,780 --> 00:19:37,380 proposition shifted from IT optimization to governance right 346 00:19:37,380 --> 00:19:40,300 to and and and and the the sequel to governance or the 347 00:19:40,300 --> 00:19:42,580 symptom of governance is security, right? 348 00:19:44,310 --> 00:19:47,950 Yeah, Sox was a huge driver from from my background. 349 00:19:47,950 --> 00:19:52,710 I mean it essentially doubled my team just trying to just trying 350 00:19:52,710 --> 00:19:56,430 to manage Sox compliance, right. It's, you know, it's, it's in 351 00:19:56,430 --> 00:19:58,070 its basic form. It's very simple, right? 352 00:19:58,070 --> 00:20:00,710 Just make sure that the access is approved and that you keep a 353 00:20:00,710 --> 00:20:02,820 record of that. You. 354 00:20:02,900 --> 00:20:06,420 Can keep all your records and e-mail and you know and and 355 00:20:06,420 --> 00:20:09,020 older taking systems that really weren't easy to search for or 356 00:20:09,020 --> 00:20:11,860 like a generic ticket. It was super hard to try and 357 00:20:11,860 --> 00:20:14,900 demonstrate that the otters that would come sit down at my desk 358 00:20:14,900 --> 00:20:18,380 and say okay here's these 30 people you know they've all been 359 00:20:18,380 --> 00:20:20,300 terminated. Prove to me that they've been 360 00:20:20,300 --> 00:20:22,420 terminated. How do you prove a negative 361 00:20:22,420 --> 00:20:23,620 right. The account doesn't exist. 362 00:20:24,380 --> 00:20:27,020 So you're having to look back through, you know, sometimes 363 00:20:27,020 --> 00:20:30,180 paper and you know, at that point and it was just a total 364 00:20:30,180 --> 00:20:34,030 pain in the ass. I think one of the the things 365 00:20:34,030 --> 00:20:38,590 that I remember from that period that Louise was talking about 366 00:20:38,590 --> 00:20:44,030 was those come, I don't know who to attribute this quote to, but 367 00:20:44,030 --> 00:20:47,750 it's we still use it today. They talked about who has access 368 00:20:47,750 --> 00:20:49,950 to what. You need to be able to show who 369 00:20:49,950 --> 00:20:53,070 has access to what and that's what there's their solutions 370 00:20:53,070 --> 00:20:57,510 specialized in and it's that's just resonated with everybody. 371 00:20:57,510 --> 00:20:58,870 Like how could you argue with that? 372 00:20:58,950 --> 00:21:02,950 Well, who has access to what? Not only does that resonate from 373 00:21:02,950 --> 00:21:05,070 the standpoint of like, yeah, that makes sense. 374 00:21:05,070 --> 00:21:07,550 Everybody needs to know. But remember, now we're no 375 00:21:07,550 --> 00:21:09,830 longer trying to do the really difficult thing. 376 00:21:09,830 --> 00:21:13,390 So it was like every identity guy just ran over to that and 377 00:21:13,390 --> 00:21:16,910 said, yeah, let's do this. Because Jim, you know, even in 378 00:21:16,910 --> 00:21:20,710 our projects today, the aggregation of identities, 379 00:21:20,710 --> 00:21:24,230 right, the consolidation of the identities into the identity 380 00:21:24,230 --> 00:21:30,150 system and then correlation and doing the unique ID and cleaning 381 00:21:30,150 --> 00:21:34,430 the system, that's I'm not a practitioner, but from what I've 382 00:21:34,430 --> 00:21:39,310 seen, that's much easier than trying to automatically 383 00:21:39,310 --> 00:21:43,110 provision with entitlements and permissions, right. 384 00:21:43,110 --> 00:21:45,150 So everybody kind of flocked to that, I think. 385 00:21:46,350 --> 00:21:49,990 Not everybody though that, that was just the one thing that I 386 00:21:49,990 --> 00:21:54,510 wanted to interject was we spent the previous five years or 10 387 00:21:54,510 --> 00:21:57,910 years training up the ladder that. 388 00:21:58,670 --> 00:22:01,030 We need to automatically provision because there's no 389 00:22:01,030 --> 00:22:03,150 other way. I mean that's that's what we can 390 00:22:03,150 --> 00:22:04,670 do. That's how we can solve this 391 00:22:04,670 --> 00:22:08,150 problem. So there was a a mindset shift, 392 00:22:08,150 --> 00:22:11,310 at least where I was in my career that's happening kind of 393 00:22:11,310 --> 00:22:15,270 grassroots of managing identities that I started to get 394 00:22:15,270 --> 00:22:18,790 it and I had to, you know, move that information up because I 395 00:22:18,790 --> 00:22:20,510 was working for somebody who said well. 396 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,240 You know, yeah, South Point of X are great. 397 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:27,480 But I need to, you know from an efficiency standpoint, I still 398 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:31,280 need to do automatic provisioning for thousands of 399 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:34,960 applications. And I think you know my, my 400 00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,720 feeling and I, I feel like I'm going to say what you're going 401 00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,920 to say next was that I think South point of XI heard that 402 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:46,480 they started to bolt on to their solution, the ability to manage 403 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,240 identities right at the same time. 404 00:22:49,630 --> 00:22:55,310 The big legacy vendors, the CA, Oracle, IBM saw hey sale point 405 00:22:55,310 --> 00:23:00,310 and of XR stealing our our lunch we need to start doing 406 00:23:00,310 --> 00:23:03,110 governance. So you see for example, I was in 407 00:23:03,110 --> 00:23:07,910 a CA shop around that time or a little bit later and you know 408 00:23:08,590 --> 00:23:11,870 they had a governance minder product, CA bought a bought a 409 00:23:11,870 --> 00:23:14,030 company, I don't remember which one you probably do. 410 00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,400 Eureka 5, right. And then they said governance 411 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,320 Winder. So that was a bolt on and I 412 00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:25,120 think the advantage was it's easier to bolt on. 413 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,520 Administration and provisioning are really not easier, but more 414 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:30,720 sensical than to bolt on governance. 415 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:34,040 Where you've been pushing out, now you have to pull in versus 416 00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,440 you're pulling in now you have to push out that. 417 00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,920 That's a really interesting point and because it's really 418 00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,800 like kind of the legacy products, how they evolved over 419 00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,000 time, right. It's like all these 420 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,800 acquisitions, the new drivers would arise and I remember that 421 00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,480 happening with role engineering, you know, son bought value. 422 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,280 I think Eureka Fi might have been, I think Eureka Fi was 423 00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,760 actually the role engineering piece that CA bought. 424 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:02,200 There was another one that was as Israeli company IDM Logic 425 00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,920 that was kind of the governance piece as well. 426 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,680 And these things became really hard to manage because it was 427 00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:13,520 just bolted on. And you know, even to this day, 428 00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,200 I don't want to criticize too harshly, but I BM has a problem 429 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,360 where you know their their product, their their legacy 430 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:24,520 product, the two aspects of it don't, don't work through the 431 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,040 same interface as far as I understand and it can. 432 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,600 We're still living that in the legacy world. 433 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,880 And now if you think about it, it's funny how in the software 434 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,720 world things repeat themselves. This issue with maturity of the 435 00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,480 products becoming legacy vendors and we see it going on over and 436 00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,700 over. One thing I wanted to mention 437 00:24:42,700 --> 00:24:46,060 before we keep walking down this line here, the the, the, the, 438 00:24:46,260 --> 00:24:50,020 the hype cycle, is that, Jeff, something you said where your 439 00:24:50,020 --> 00:24:54,180 team doubled right when socks happened, To me that's a direct 440 00:24:54,180 --> 00:24:57,820 indication of executive support, right? 441 00:24:58,140 --> 00:25:02,740 So not only did the problem get easier to fix, the products 442 00:25:02,740 --> 00:25:04,620 improve. We're on the second generation 443 00:25:04,620 --> 00:25:08,270 of products and now CFO's cared because they want to stay out of 444 00:25:08,310 --> 00:25:09,310 jail. Exactly. 445 00:25:09,990 --> 00:25:12,950 It's a big help, right? Yeah, keep the auditors off 446 00:25:12,950 --> 00:25:14,550 their back and you know they were happy. 447 00:25:14,550 --> 00:25:16,790 And I think every organization approached a little bit 448 00:25:16,790 --> 00:25:20,070 differently. You know the most experience 449 00:25:20,070 --> 00:25:23,470 that I have, we decided to create centralized kind of I am 450 00:25:23,470 --> 00:25:27,030 centers of excellence, right. So things that were being 451 00:25:27,030 --> 00:25:29,870 disparately provisioned all around the enterprise, we pulled 452 00:25:29,870 --> 00:25:33,630 into one central group common set of processes. 453 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,800 A way of doing things. And then we had a strike team, 454 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:42,160 Leslie and Ray, if you guys are listening, they went out and 455 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,040 they were brought in specifically to help pull in 456 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,200 socks applications or applications that were 457 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:51,080 identified as having socks relevance into our group and 458 00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,000 then scoring through that. So there were. 459 00:25:53,460 --> 00:25:55,500 I want to say at least several dozen that kind of fell into 460 00:25:55,500 --> 00:25:57,820 that. When you consider mainframes, I 461 00:25:57,820 --> 00:26:00,500 series, you know, kind of all that stuff, but there was 462 00:26:00,500 --> 00:26:05,140 definitely support to staff it. What I didn't really see as much 463 00:26:05,140 --> 00:26:08,700 support though was on the software side until it became a 464 00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:12,300 scaling problem where yeah, we're going to have to double, 465 00:26:12,300 --> 00:26:15,300 triple, quadruple the size of the team just to keep pace with 466 00:26:15,660 --> 00:26:19,260 the volume of requests as the, you know, business continued to 467 00:26:19,260 --> 00:26:20,620 grow because when I first started. 468 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,720 We were on store 4000 at Walgreens when I left. 469 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,480 I think we're like 8000, so we doubled just the store count 470 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,240 alone. If you imagine that's hundreds 471 00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,800 of thousands of users trying to manage all that. 472 00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:34,800 We definitely had to make an investment from the technology 473 00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:40,000 side just to keep pace, yeah. And something Jim said, right, 474 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,920 the provisioning requirements still remained right and and 475 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,360 people were still doing that. Yet I think you know these side 476 00:26:46,360 --> 00:26:49,240 projects around governance were going on even when people had 477 00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:54,200 CICAIBM and Oracle, they were deploying sale put it of Vexa in 478 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,960 parallel to that and we had two magic quadrants, right. 479 00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:00,920 We had the identity management, nobody says they did any 480 00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,360 management anymore, right. We had the identity management 481 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,880 Magic quadrant. We had the Governance quadrant 482 00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,870 and then we started to suffer a lot of business disruption in 483 00:27:11,870 --> 00:27:16,350 this space, right. A vexing got acquired around 484 00:27:16,350 --> 00:27:21,310 this time I think by EMC and then EMC got acquired by RSA, 485 00:27:21,510 --> 00:27:27,070 the RSA and then he means EMC and then Dell you know so. 486 00:27:27,150 --> 00:27:32,110 So things started getting shaken up in this, in this space. 487 00:27:32,590 --> 00:27:37,990 Meanwhile BMC was falling off. Remember Guy BMC had a product 488 00:27:37,990 --> 00:27:43,970 here and sale point I guess acquired the BMC customer base 489 00:27:43,970 --> 00:27:46,210 or licenses. I wasn't really close to sale 490 00:27:46,210 --> 00:27:48,410 point at that time. So I don't know exactly how that 491 00:27:48,410 --> 00:27:50,570 went down, I was competing with them. 492 00:27:50,570 --> 00:27:53,930 But the net, net is what Jim was talking about was you know the 493 00:27:53,930 --> 00:27:58,770 products got integrated and you had I provisioning and 494 00:27:58,770 --> 00:28:02,610 governance in the same product that became a requirement. 495 00:28:03,030 --> 00:28:06,150 And Gartner released the identity governance 496 00:28:06,150 --> 00:28:09,470 administration quadrant, which is still what we're what we're 497 00:28:09,470 --> 00:28:12,270 seeing today. And we were on our way kind of 498 00:28:12,430 --> 00:28:16,230 moving up that height, back up to where we weren't a bad word 499 00:28:16,710 --> 00:28:20,270 towards the the plateau of the plateau of productivity. 500 00:28:21,110 --> 00:28:23,950 You know, another thing that's happening in the background in 501 00:28:23,950 --> 00:28:31,190 this time frame time frame, was major public, publicly announced 502 00:28:31,190 --> 00:28:36,110 data breaches. And so we're also seeing, you 503 00:28:36,110 --> 00:28:42,470 know I yeah, TJMaxx, Home Depot, things like that target. 504 00:28:42,670 --> 00:28:48,430 But you also you know you'd have the the smart executive 1015 505 00:28:48,430 --> 00:28:51,750 years ago would say well you know you want me to invest 506 00:28:51,750 --> 00:28:55,550 $1,000,000 in security. Show me how it's going to save 507 00:28:55,550 --> 00:28:58,830 me more than $1,000,000. How's that a good This is your 508 00:28:58,830 --> 00:29:02,560 best. The shock factor of saying, hey, 509 00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:07,200 what if you suffer a data breach that cost you $300 million in 510 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,560 brand equity that that wasn't even a conversation back then. 511 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,960 Now it's like people know that that's that's a reality, right? 512 00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,960 I mean all over the, it's all over the news. 513 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,840 So that's happening in the background I think more because 514 00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,600 one of the other things that you see, you know Gardner does a 515 00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,160 really good job, I think all the analyst firms do. 516 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,680 But talking about how the investment and security is you 517 00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:38,480 know increasing every year and it's just that it enabled the 518 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,400 industry to grow. And one of the other I keep 519 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,600 taking these sidetracks, but I think it's important to point 520 00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,720 out is that the identity and access management industry is 521 00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,120 always being driven by startup companies. 522 00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,520 So you we talked about CA and Oracle. 523 00:29:53,900 --> 00:29:56,660 Neither one of the those companies really started their 524 00:29:56,660 --> 00:29:59,460 identity management system. I think, you know I was really 525 00:29:59,460 --> 00:30:02,180 more close to Oracle. They had some things, they went 526 00:30:02,180 --> 00:30:04,260 out and bought objects. Then they went out and bought 527 00:30:04,260 --> 00:30:07,100 the worst of small companies that grew into big companies. 528 00:30:07,100 --> 00:30:10,860 And you know and you still see that today where this is an 529 00:30:10,860 --> 00:30:14,700 industry where you can start, it's a very small company build, 530 00:30:15,500 --> 00:30:18,700 you know a killer technology and then get bought out by. 531 00:30:19,170 --> 00:30:22,490 A larger company and added to a suite and then sometimes those 532 00:30:22,490 --> 00:30:25,930 companies go, you know, take a sale point or an Octa for 533 00:30:25,930 --> 00:30:27,570 example. They'll start as a startup and 534 00:30:27,570 --> 00:30:30,490 grow all the way and become a public company on their own. 535 00:30:31,570 --> 00:30:36,650 Jim, this conversation is great because I'm remembering things 536 00:30:36,650 --> 00:30:38,490 that I hadn't thought about in a long time. 537 00:30:38,490 --> 00:30:41,330 So about this time, you're absolutely right. 538 00:30:41,330 --> 00:30:43,090 People would come to us and they'd say, all right, this 539 00:30:43,090 --> 00:30:46,250 sounds great, Can you, can you guys do an Roy analysis? 540 00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,920 And I'm not kidding. I look at the we as sales guys, 541 00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,520 we would look at that guy and we would say no, you're not ready 542 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,960 to buy this. We really, we really did not do 543 00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,840 them and we ran away because this was a governance. 544 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:03,560 Play so security play. You just do this. 545 00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,760 You don't ask me for an ROI. So you took me back to the day 546 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:08,360 there, man. It's. 547 00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,760 All these cold shivers and. Bad memories, one of. 548 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,680 My one of my stories is, you know, we. 549 00:31:16,660 --> 00:31:18,900 The company I was working for eventually went out and we 550 00:31:18,900 --> 00:31:22,620 bought obliques, which later became Oracle Access Manager. 551 00:31:22,940 --> 00:31:27,780 But we try trying to convince an executive they should spend a 552 00:31:27,780 --> 00:31:30,700 lot of money on on the technology called obliques that 553 00:31:30,700 --> 00:31:33,460 they've never heard of before. They have to explain what it 554 00:31:33,460 --> 00:31:36,900 does and why it's a good investment and things like that. 555 00:31:36,900 --> 00:31:41,660 And again, data breaches weren't in the news all the time, so we. 556 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:46,240 Went back to the Alex sales Rep, who by the way was Tom Neckle 557 00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,400 who had been to the dentropy who later up. 558 00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,600 I know, Tom, Yeah. I was here a little while with 559 00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,640 him. He was here at I dentropy for a 560 00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:56,960 while. He was our sales guy and I asked 561 00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,040 him the same kind of question. I think he gave me the same 562 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:03,840 cross eyed look, but ultimately their the way they would build 563 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,800 an ROI was well how much do you guys pay for a password reset, 564 00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,880 Password reset? Now you're now you're going to 565 00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,560 the you're digging deep in the album crate here man. 566 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,160 That's right. Yeah password recent. 567 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,920 We used to love that cuz we'd be like that is ROI. 568 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,360 There was tons that we'd justify the whole identity project with 569 00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,440 password reset. That's how I got into it, and I 570 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,240 spent way too much time running reports trying to figure out how 571 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,400 many passes we were doing. And it was just that's exactly 572 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,770 how ours started. And that's funny too because you 573 00:32:37,770 --> 00:32:41,290 know that is significant value to the business, right? 574 00:32:41,290 --> 00:32:46,330 Like that's an identity value proposition where the users are 575 00:32:46,330 --> 00:32:49,810 grateful. The only thing perhaps better is 576 00:32:49,810 --> 00:32:53,850 single sign on. And if you remember back in this 577 00:32:53,850 --> 00:32:56,730 day, and I'm I'm mixing Gartner quadrants, I'm missing mixing 578 00:32:56,730 --> 00:32:58,450 sectors. But everybody wanted to do what 579 00:32:58,450 --> 00:33:01,530 we called enterprise Single Sign on, which was single sign on 580 00:33:01,930 --> 00:33:05,340 inside the organization, which was a pain. 581 00:33:05,340 --> 00:33:08,540 It was not easy to do. And then things shifted again, 582 00:33:08,540 --> 00:33:10,180 right? It became more about web single 583 00:33:10,180 --> 00:33:12,660 sign on. It became and more things were 584 00:33:12,660 --> 00:33:16,380 Active Directory centric. It wasn't really single sign on, 585 00:33:16,380 --> 00:33:20,140 it was simplified sign on where you just used the same password 586 00:33:20,140 --> 00:33:23,540 over and over, but you didn't just automatically have access 587 00:33:23,540 --> 00:33:26,660 without authenticating. Yeah, you'd have like little 588 00:33:26,660 --> 00:33:29,620 listeners running on a D They'd pick up a password change, 589 00:33:29,620 --> 00:33:30,260 right? And then? 590 00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:32,920 Push that out so it wasn't synchronization. 591 00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,040 Yeah, exactly. Spent a lot of time in Windows 592 00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:36,840 genus, right? Trying to make sure those things 593 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,160 were. Working right for the user. 594 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:44,200 Yeah, so go ahead. I was gonna say, I know you guys 595 00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,400 don't want to have a 2 hour podcast. 596 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,160 I know we could probably. How are we doing on time? 597 00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:52,760 I think I got a couple minutes. I want to ask you a couple 598 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,720 questions outside of this and I want to ask you the first one 599 00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,000 is. From a hype perspective, what's 600 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,760 something that you see today that is either really overhyped 601 00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:09,280 or underhyped, in your opinion? AI, AI. 602 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,400 And is it over or under? I mean, so I think this is 603 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,719 really interesting, right? This is actually now let's get 604 00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,760 the plateau. So what happened? 605 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:20,360 Right, these things became easier. 606 00:34:20,679 --> 00:34:24,370 Applications have programming interfaces. 607 00:34:24,370 --> 00:34:27,290 Now that we can go in, the synchronization probably became 608 00:34:27,290 --> 00:34:29,730 simpler. Expectations are less so. 609 00:34:29,730 --> 00:34:33,889 I don't want you to provision entitlements, some do, but you 610 00:34:33,889 --> 00:34:35,810 know I'm okay with you creating the account. 611 00:34:36,130 --> 00:34:40,449 So got easier. The environment got less got you 612 00:34:40,449 --> 00:34:44,370 have more access to build these integrations and we hit this 613 00:34:44,370 --> 00:34:47,449 plateau where where is working like we can look at our clients. 614 00:34:47,449 --> 00:34:49,330 So we can say it's going to work. 615 00:34:49,330 --> 00:34:51,889 We have you know 30 active projects. 616 00:34:51,889 --> 00:34:55,050 You know a couple people might not be 100% satisfied, but 617 00:34:55,050 --> 00:34:58,490 generally we're doing our jobs and we're coming in under budget 618 00:34:58,490 --> 00:35:03,370 and they're on all these issues. So now enter this new era right 619 00:35:03,370 --> 00:35:08,850 now, right, where everybody knows that the enemy is within, 620 00:35:09,470 --> 00:35:11,350 right? Everybody understands insider 621 00:35:11,350 --> 00:35:14,150 threat, Everybody understands the walls are gone. 622 00:35:15,110 --> 00:35:18,590 People are accessing our data from outside of our data center. 623 00:35:18,590 --> 00:35:23,070 So the old paradigm of firewalls and keeping people out is gone. 624 00:35:23,430 --> 00:35:26,710 So what's left for us, right, is identity. 625 00:35:27,070 --> 00:35:29,630 You know, if everybody's coming in and out, at least I want to 626 00:35:29,630 --> 00:35:32,030 know who's coming in and out where they're going, right? 627 00:35:33,150 --> 00:35:36,240 And then you know these concepts of deep learning and machine 628 00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:39,840 learning and A I and all of this stuff that could process data 629 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,200 more fat, more quickly and look for behavior patterns. 630 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:45,960 That's the big promise we're all living right now. 631 00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:55,360 And to me that creates now getting us out of this plateau 632 00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,640 and starting a new hype cycle, right? 633 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:04,410 A new hype towards behavior based auto magic provisioning 634 00:36:04,410 --> 00:36:08,970 and behavior based authentication and authorization 635 00:36:08,970 --> 00:36:11,290 and all of these things that I'm sure you're seeing as well. 636 00:36:11,610 --> 00:36:14,690 Would you agree with that, Jeff? Yeah, I think probably talking 637 00:36:14,690 --> 00:36:17,170 about things like adaptive authentication, conditional 638 00:36:17,170 --> 00:36:18,890 logic, those types of things, right. 639 00:36:19,490 --> 00:36:22,930 I wonder if it's AI is because there really hasn't been. 640 00:36:24,410 --> 00:36:28,130 A real good application yet in the I M space, I think there is 641 00:36:28,130 --> 00:36:30,050 logic, right? And you're trying to detect 642 00:36:30,050 --> 00:36:32,090 behaviors. I think that's probably just one 643 00:36:32,090 --> 00:36:34,130 phase of it. I look at more from the end user 644 00:36:34,130 --> 00:36:36,210 side, right? When am I going to go and say, 645 00:36:36,210 --> 00:36:38,970 hey, I don't want to trigger my things in here, but you know, if 646 00:36:38,970 --> 00:36:42,850 I say Alexa or Google or Siri, when are they going to that 647 00:36:42,850 --> 00:36:47,170 natural language kind of input going to be able to infer, you 648 00:36:47,170 --> 00:36:50,690 know what I'm trying to do and then how does it help me get 649 00:36:50,690 --> 00:36:54,240 access to what I need you? Know going forward, you know so 650 00:36:54,240 --> 00:36:57,400 I think what we're seeing in a I that's not necessarily over 651 00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:02,520 hyped is you could apply a I within the product to simplify 652 00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,040 tasks right. Repetitive tasks no longer need 653 00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:08,480 to be manual. There are things inside the 654 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,520 product that are are are made easier let's say. 655 00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:17,440 But the real value spans the product and it really creates 656 00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,120 spans outside the product, it creates new product categories 657 00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:24,770 right. So we're seeing the opportunity 658 00:37:24,770 --> 00:37:28,210 for integration between behavior analytics and identity 659 00:37:28,210 --> 00:37:30,450 governance, where identity governance tells us who has 660 00:37:30,450 --> 00:37:33,690 access to what and now we have to start caring about what 661 00:37:33,690 --> 00:37:35,890 people are doing with that access, right. 662 00:37:36,570 --> 00:37:42,250 So there's a whole new shift that involves identity that 663 00:37:42,250 --> 00:37:46,650 surrounds identity that's wrapped around a I and 664 00:37:46,650 --> 00:37:51,570 intelligence and and machine learning that is going to force 665 00:37:51,570 --> 00:37:55,880 us to reevaluate our organizations that say, OK, I 666 00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,360 had identity over here and I had seen and behavior analytics over 667 00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,640 there. These teams need to collapse or 668 00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,240 at the very least they need to start speaking with one another, 669 00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,240 which somewhat reminds us, remember when you said you got 670 00:38:07,240 --> 00:38:11,800 your strike team formed. I think this this is happening 671 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,360 again and I think it has to happen. 672 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:16,880 Yeah. There could be obviously 673 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:18,920 maturity in the in the space as well, right. 674 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,040 So products need to find some way to. 675 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,080 How do you make either get more value out of that or explore new 676 00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:28,600 avenues and you know you know other ways to kind of get feet 677 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,840 in the door to fix security things right like blockchain, 678 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:32,760 right. Everyone's been talking about 679 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,720 blockchain. You know for I AM I'm still not 680 00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:38,640 quite sure where where that's going to be really applicable. 681 00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,480 Yeah in an enterprise situation I understand the benefits, 682 00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:42,560 right. You've got your distributive, 683 00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,480 Ledger etcetera. But how does it fit in an I AM 684 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,000 space beyond just a management of an identity? 685 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:50,720 You know, that's maybe more self sovereign. 686 00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:53,680 Well, I think that's yours and Jim's job, right. 687 00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,120 That's what's so interesting because we sit somewhere between 688 00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,760 the vendor and the client. Our interests are aligned with 689 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,840 the client. Always what the client expects 690 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:09,360 for us is to push them or pull them or help them really evolve 691 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,680 right and improve. So once you're doing that, 692 00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,640 you're not no longer doing meat and potatoes, you're you're 693 00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,280 really encouraging people to to progress. 694 00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,560 So in that sense we're moving towards the vendor yet we're 695 00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:22,960 looking at the vendor and looking back into the customer 696 00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:25,800 saying well we've never seen that done before, right. 697 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,800 And and and I think that that's really our biggest value 698 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,840 proposition from an advisory and consultative perspective. 699 00:39:33,150 --> 00:39:35,910 Execution's huge, right? Chad and Wolcott who runs our 700 00:39:35,910 --> 00:39:39,790 services, his teams and screwing it in, it's like the two people 701 00:39:39,790 --> 00:39:42,390 you gave a shot out to. That's the Super hard work. 702 00:39:42,990 --> 00:39:46,070 But I think our job is also extremely valuable to say, yeah, 703 00:39:46,070 --> 00:39:47,790 you know what, I don't really buy that. 704 00:39:47,870 --> 00:39:52,710 I don't really know if that's going to work, but we can try it 705 00:39:52,710 --> 00:39:57,870 and we can mitigate risk and we can do it in a pilot, but we're 706 00:39:57,870 --> 00:40:00,150 not just going to sell you that hook line and Sacre. 707 00:40:03,780 --> 00:40:04,740 All right. I think you should probably 708 00:40:04,900 --> 00:40:06,860 start to close it out here. Jim, do you have anything that 709 00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:10,140 you want to add? You know, I just just the 710 00:40:10,140 --> 00:40:12,100 thought that I was having, as you guys were talking about 711 00:40:12,100 --> 00:40:17,500 that, it seems to me that one of the areas where, you know, 712 00:40:18,220 --> 00:40:22,420 Louise identified the AI piece as overhyped. 713 00:40:22,780 --> 00:40:25,220 I think it might be overhyped from the standpoint of whether 714 00:40:25,220 --> 00:40:29,140 or not it actually gets a foothold, but in terms of the 715 00:40:29,140 --> 00:40:31,600 promise of what it could. Deliver. 716 00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,680 I mean, I think that's the biggest threat to organizations 717 00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,520 is that they won't even know when they're breached. 718 00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,520 But the data is there. I mean all these systems are 719 00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,920 being logged. It's just you need the 720 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,880 technology to piece it all together and put it on a 721 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,720 dashboard to somebody to say hey something fishy is happening 722 00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:52,640 over here, or to figure some automated actions to disable 723 00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:57,320 accounts, things like that, potentially either identifying 724 00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,280 or preventing data breaches before they occur. 725 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:06,400 So I feel like the the promise of where you know, hey that the 726 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,960 identification of this is the potential solution to the main 727 00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,480 problem that we have. I don't think that's overhyped. 728 00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:17,400 But whether or not the technology of user behavior 729 00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,440 analytics really ever gets there, the thing that I've found 730 00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,440 that I think holds back technologies from really 731 00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,480 succeeding is any kind of lack of standards. 732 00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:31,830 So if the smart people or the. You know the big leaders within 733 00:41:31,830 --> 00:41:35,670 the industry to come together and form a group to set a 734 00:41:35,670 --> 00:41:40,070 standard like the SAMOL standard or the XML standard, you know, 735 00:41:40,310 --> 00:41:44,110 and people really dot. And there are a lot of examples 736 00:41:44,150 --> 00:41:49,190 of those standards that haven't been nearly as successful as the 737 00:41:49,190 --> 00:41:53,470 ones I just mentioned. However, I feel like that could 738 00:41:53,470 --> 00:41:57,310 potentially help drive things products build around those 739 00:41:57,310 --> 00:41:59,610 standards. Then companies have an easier 740 00:41:59,610 --> 00:42:02,050 time adopting them. Yeah. 741 00:42:02,210 --> 00:42:05,290 So I agree. I think the technology's there, 742 00:42:05,290 --> 00:42:06,890 right. And it goes back to the same 743 00:42:06,890 --> 00:42:10,490 problem we saw with Identity is that, you know, we work a lot 744 00:42:10,490 --> 00:42:13,210 with X of being their great friend of ours, great friends of 745 00:42:13,210 --> 00:42:15,050 ours. We pick them to integrate with 746 00:42:15,050 --> 00:42:18,010 sale point because of phenomenal product, phenomenal team. 747 00:42:18,610 --> 00:42:22,090 But the experience in the end user is what are the use cases, 748 00:42:22,090 --> 00:42:24,170 right? What are the data sources we're 749 00:42:24,170 --> 00:42:26,600 going to bring in? And in the intersection of 750 00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:30,880 Exabium and sale point, you know what are the use cases, what how 751 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,040 can we leverage this extremely powerful tool. 752 00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:40,760 So I think it's organizational and the vendors push and lead 753 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:44,360 the way. But you know I challenge our 754 00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,520 friends out there. They're doing the hard work in 755 00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:49,560 the IT teams and the security teams, the practitioners to 756 00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:53,520 really consider and and they don't have time to do it, but to 757 00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,710 consider. How can we cooperate with these 758 00:42:56,710 --> 00:43:01,350 other people, you know, and how and how can we get our processes 759 00:43:01,350 --> 00:43:03,230 together? How can we make these different 760 00:43:03,230 --> 00:43:06,870 tools all a part of our program? And I know we're wrapping up, 761 00:43:06,870 --> 00:43:10,110 but I'll just say, you know, along those lines, an example of 762 00:43:10,110 --> 00:43:13,870 that is pretty much everybody owns MFA, right? 763 00:43:14,190 --> 00:43:17,940 Everybody owns a Pam tool. Everybody to some degree kind of 764 00:43:17,940 --> 00:43:22,140 has an IGA tool be it you know an AD tool like Active Role 765 00:43:22,140 --> 00:43:24,500 Server or Oracle Identity Manager. 766 00:43:25,260 --> 00:43:29,900 The challenges, how, how are we going to integrate those into 767 00:43:29,900 --> 00:43:32,820 our processes and how do we tie all those things together. 768 00:43:32,820 --> 00:43:35,420 And I know that's what you guys struggle with and that's why 769 00:43:35,420 --> 00:43:39,820 I'll end the, I'll end my piece here where I started it, which I 770 00:43:39,820 --> 00:43:43,740 always have a great deal of respect for you guys that are 771 00:43:43,740 --> 00:43:48,260 customer facing in the account. Challenging and helping people 772 00:43:49,460 --> 00:43:52,020 move forward. I think my job's a lot easier. 773 00:43:53,540 --> 00:43:56,420 I agree. You know, and going back to 774 00:43:56,420 --> 00:43:59,380 Jim's point, as we'll close out here in a second, you know, 775 00:43:59,380 --> 00:44:01,780 there's, there's so much data out there that's just not being 776 00:44:01,780 --> 00:44:03,020 used. And I think a I definitely can 777 00:44:03,020 --> 00:44:04,940 help with that or at least, you know, the behavior analysis 778 00:44:04,940 --> 00:44:07,340 parts of it. There's an old saying and I have 779 00:44:07,340 --> 00:44:10,380 no idea where I heard it or when, but there's two types of 780 00:44:10,380 --> 00:44:11,660 companies. There's ones that have been 781 00:44:11,660 --> 00:44:14,620 hacked and the other ones that don't know it yet, right? 782 00:44:14,620 --> 00:44:17,570 It's just there's and it's just the way it works so. 783 00:44:18,770 --> 00:44:20,570 So I think with that we'll go ahead and wrap it up here. 784 00:44:20,610 --> 00:44:22,210 Louise, totally appreciate your time. 785 00:44:22,210 --> 00:44:24,130 Being able to have a conversation like this is great, 786 00:44:24,130 --> 00:44:29,490 but hope you come back and. Hey guy, it's a privilege. 787 00:44:29,490 --> 00:44:33,410 Just for the record it is Friday at 4:00 PM and you know a sales 788 00:44:33,410 --> 00:44:36,810 guys about this time of day on a Friday we start we start you 789 00:44:36,810 --> 00:44:39,570 know wondering what we're doing here in front of the laptop. 790 00:44:39,570 --> 00:44:42,930 But it to me this was great and and thank you guys for having me 791 00:44:42,930 --> 00:44:45,370 and you know have a great weekend. 792 00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,680 You've been listening to the Identity at the Center podcast. 793 00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,680 To access all episodes, visit identity@thecenter.com.