CA Tech to launch Single Sign-On solution by year-end

CA Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed IT management software and solutions company, will be launching Single Sign-On, a solution that provides users with automated access to all necessary applications through a single, secured log-in, towards the end of the current calendar year, according to Michael Denning, general manager (security, customer solutions group).

“With more and more software and applications being delivered on the cloud, one of the challenges a lot of organisations face is how to control who is accessing those SaaS (software-as-a-service) applications even though they are no longer in their own data centres,” he told Business Standard.

CA’s Single Sign-On enables users to access virtually any application or system with a single authentication without modification of those applications. It also provides robust password, application access and session management capabilities.

Denning said that the over $4.8-billion company, to which its security business contributes over 10 per cent, already had an existing pipeline of six Beta customers, including in India, testing out the Single Sign-On service and trying to give active feedback.

“We can handle millions of users and that can even come with five to 10 large customers or between 30 and 40 mid-sized companies,” he said, while declining to share any targets.

According to him, the identity and access management market is approximately $4.5 billion globally, and is expected to grow upwards of $6 billion in the next three-and-a-half years, primarily driven by the mobile going online, businesses putting data online and the threat landscape, which are creating a greater need for security protection.

Stating that the company was focusing on financial services, government entities, healthcare and communication providers to log growth, Denning said the company saw authentication services as one of the bigger growth areas in the Indian market.

“It is somewhat disruptive in the market. It is not very practical to have a hard device in the hands of every Indian citizen. It is much more practical to have a soft token ... that’s behind the scenes ... in the browser. And, that’s where we think that our authentication really helps us disrupt the market and will help us in seeing opportunities here at very reasonable price points,” he said.