The distributor''''s top manager told the readers about the state of the IDM market, types of customers, cooperation with Avanpost, and its services in this area as part of the IDM solutions rating published on CNews.
The editors of the IT marketplace Market.CNews published the first rating of IDM 2023 solutions in Russia. Analysts compared the characteristics, customization capabilities, as well as options for licensing and certification of access rights management systems.
Merlion acted as a review partner – in a published interview, Mikhail Stepanyuk, Director of the Software and Corporate Systems Department (Merlion), told CNews readers about the state of the IDM market, types of customers, cooperation with the leader of the rating, Avanpost, and its services in this area.
Market CNews: How long have you been working with Avanpost? How do you assess the partnership and what other solutions and products of the vendor are presented in your portfolio, in addition to IDM?
Mikhail Stepanyuk: Merlion became the first distributor of Avanpost, and the distribution agreement was signed just over a year ago. And the joint work turned out to be so productive that we see excellent prospects. Over the past year, we have seen an increase in the interest of our partners in this vendor's solutions. And today we are ready to offer them several Avanpost products at once in addition to Avanpost IDM.
First of all, it is a system of single authentication of employees in the corporate resources of the Avanpost FAM organization. This system allows you to organize a universal authentication platform that will provide users with unified login rules for all applications, regardless of the protocol. The support of Reverse Proxy authentication technology and window interception through the Agent (Esso/Enterprise SSO) solves the problem of compatibility between SSO and applications as all you need to do to connect the application to SSO is to choose the appropriate protocol.
In addition, Merlion's portfolio contains Avanpost PKI systems to manage all elements of the PKI infrastructure from a single center, as well as Avanpost Web SSO for unified user authentication in portals and external applications.
Market CNews: How do you assess the current state of the IDM market and what is your forecast? Who, in your opinion, is the main customer of such solutions? What needs and tasks of your partners and their customers can you highlight?
Mikhail Stepanyuk: Domestic developers traditionally lead in this segment, and, unlike companies working in other areas, they can only benefit from the current difficult situation. Russian developers have strong teams, which is confirmed by the rating of CNews and its four winners, which was headed by Avanpost. The best service is impossible without healthy competition, so all four leaders have something to offer customers.
The main customer of IDM systems is medium and large businesses with an estimated number of employees reaching at least several thousand where several different information systems of various types and purposes are used. Such systems are functionally redundant and too expensive for small organizations: a system administrator can manage access rights with a small number of users.
As for the industry specifics, these are retail, telecom, financial, and industrial organizations. The needs of different partners of customers can vary greatly, therefore projects are implemented on an individual basis in all specific cases. Large businesses have always been subject to multiple attacks which have increased many times in present-day conditions, and this is what worries absolutely all customers.
Mykhail Stepanyuk, Director of Software and Enterprise Systems, Merlion
Market CNews: Merlion's competencies in the field of information security: how developed are they and what are the plans for the development of this area?
Mikhail Stepanyuk: We have been working with IDM technology for many years as we were the only distributor of One Identity (which offered such solutions on the market) since 2011. Today, our portfolio already includes dozens of information security solutions related not only to the Identity Management segment but also to various segments: anti-virus protection, content filtering, PAM systems, solutions for working with electronic signatures, and specialized products for anti-fraud in the banking sector. All these solutions comply with the regulatory documents of the FSTEC and the Federal Security Service and have all the necessary certificates.
Our engineers are officially certified and are highly qualified experts dealing with the products of dozens of vendors. We are planning to constantly expand our portfolio of solutions and expertise in the field of information security.
Market CNews: What is the distributor's role in information security these days?
Mikhail Stepanyuk: Only a distributor has the opportunity to develop a portfolio of products and expertise as an investment in future tasks rather than for specific projects,. Even a large business does not have the resources to compare and test many different products and solutions as this is outside its field of activity. In addition, new vendors are constantly entering the market today, and they are completely unknown to most partners and customers. Jointly with the partners, a distributor can choose the optimal solutions for customers both in terms of functionality and configuration and in terms of cost. Distributor support is also extremely important from a service and financial point of view.
Market CNews: What services does the distributor provide? How widely is the engineering expertise presented?
Mikhail Stepanyuk: Merlion has its own technical center with a large number of certified specialists. Thanks to this, we have the opportunity to test the equipment and software of various vendors in conditions as close as possible to real ones.
In addition, the technical center has a center for partners' competence development,°Merlion Academy, which offers several innovative formats for training engineers and specialists. Such formats include face-to-face trainings and seminars, webinars and a distance learning system with remote access to training materials. This year alone, Merlion Academy has implemented 33 training projects with 625 participants from 70 cities, with 1,095 people registering to access the materials.
Finally, the engineers of the Merlion technical center organized a demonstration and test environment for the products of domestic vendors. Upon preliminary request, the engineers of the technical center conduct a demonstration of the software and hardware functionality during which they give advice to the partners and their customers. In particular, we have several experts in IDM technology who will help in conducting demos and pilots. Demonstrations can be held both during a personal visit to the technical center and remotely online.
All materials of the first IDM 2023 rating of solutions in Russia are here.
Source: https://market.cnews.ru/articles/2023-07-09_mihail_stepanyukmerlion_luchshij_servis
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