Oracle solutions for a smooth transition to cloud Oracle recently released Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS), a cloud-based identity management system that works by associating specific rights and restrictions with each user’s established identity. Royce Teoh, Head of Digital Security at Oracle ASEAN & SAGE, talked to VIR’s Hong Anh about companies’ need to transition to cloud as well as how IDCS ensures security to make this transition as smooth as possible. Security issues are heating up all around the world, including Vietnam. Is it because digital security is becoming much more complicated than ever before? Today, hardly a day goes by without the sound of alarms after major breaches or security hacking. There are even websites dedicated to report on these breaches. Previously, IT was locked-down within the four walls of companies—which means companies bought and installed their own hardware and software, built their own applications, and all users sat within the offices, hermetically closed off from the outside world. However, we are living in the digital world now. Cloud became a common term everywhere, even in Vietnam. According to a recent survey, around 55 per cent of Vietnamese adult population own a smartphone which can access the Internet. Thus, companies’ IT systems might be exposed to the outside world. All the walls have disappeared. This is one of the many dynamics making companies more vulnerable to cyber attacks. That is why awareness of cyber security is becoming more important in the world. The companies need to think of protecting their data, their applications, as well as the identity of their customers and employees—the most precious information that is the ultimate aim of most hacker attacks. How about Vietnam? In your opinion, where does Vietnam stand compared to the world in terms of cloud adoption? We are seeing a great shift in cloud adoption within the Vietnamese business community. Companies want not only to compete in Vietnam but on the international market as well. Because if they let geographic boundaries constrict them, it will be very hard to compete effectively against the larger corporations coming in. Cloud gives them the necessary tools to do that. Cloud adoption is progressing in Vietnam at a moderate speed but within a year, it will greatly accelerate. On the other hand, security is definitely becoming a key concern as cloud services are spreading. Oracle wants to make sure the journey moving to cloud is as smooth as possible. Since the company might have a certain level of security, or policy for their current IT systems, they would like to have a consistent way of managing the cloud. That is what we are trying to provide. We believe businesses should have a similar way of managing both on-premise and cloud services, as well as a single view across all. That is Oracle security vision in a nutshell. Vietnamese customers are already aware of security issues, because they have been running their on-premise systems for a long time. They have also invested quite a lot in security. The only question left to wonder is whether the cloud is as mature and watertight as their previous practices. That is why Oracle is trying to convince them that in the cloud, it is possible to keep their policies and security requirements. Oracle has recently released IDCS. How will it help enhance security? With the advent of cloud, users can access data directly from multiple devices, for example mobiles, laptops or even wearables, without touching the network and going through network security. Controlling access within today’s network environments, which support many types of information systems both on-premises and in the cloud, is much more difficult, particularly in the face of today’s strict compliance regulations. Each new application and service often presents new user identities. Being able to tie activity to an identity can help companies start to cross-correlate across all these services and the devices used. IDCS works by associating specific rights and restrictions with each user’s established identity. A key part of IDCS is a unique technology known as Oracle Identity Bridge that connects new and old identity management systems. Oracle Identity Bridge preserves investments in on-premise applications, including system administrators’ time and effort  spent on setting up identities, groups, privileges, and entitlements for thousands of users. There is no need to duplicate these efforts or recreate identities. Oracle Identity Cloud Service reuses these instructions and inherits existing entitlements with only a few clicks. Instead of taking weeks or months to build up another application and re-create all user identities, you can now carry these investments forward with ease. How is this approach different or unique compared to your competitors’ products? IDCS emphasises Oracle’s commitment to assist our customers on their journey to cloud. There is no denying the fact that there are various similar Identity-as-a-Service products on the market. However, lots of them started purely as cloud services. On the other hand, Oracle has a lot of experience with on-premise technology. We know how on-premise security works. We provide full and comprehensive identity solutions for on-premise systems. In fact, we are the number one service providers in this identity market. For the vast majority of organisations that rely on both cloud and on-premise applications, each with their own set of user identities and provisioning methods, IDCS helps to rationalise and synchronise identity management (IDM) activities. As new cloud applications come online, they are replicated and synchronised with the on-premise apps, and vice versa. IT pros have a “single pane of glass” interface, enabling single-pane management of the IDM infrastructure. Will IDCS be compatible with different services from other vendors? Of course it will. IDCS provides compliance to open standards, such as SCIM, REST, OAuth, and OpenID Connect, for easy application integrations. One of the most important factors for cloud services is the ability to integrate. We do not want IDCS to fit only with our cloud, because we know that only a handful of companies are using cloud services from a single vendor. Hence, with open and Standards-based Integration, IDCS can enable enterprises to rapidly integrate with cloud applications using standard protocols, as well as reduce development costs and prevent vendor lock-in by using proven industry standards. VIR