Some of your key challenges as a SaaS/Cloud application provider are related to managing access to those applications:

End users
- don't remember passwords
- forget the application after failing to log on a couple of times
Local administrators
- hate maintaining user profiles in different places
- hate web based user management
- have better things to do

For you, the above means less usage, which translates to money lost.

The best way to respond to these challenges is to let customers control access to your application with their own user directory (AD, LDAP or similar), just like they to with their in-house applications. That way you will minimize usage barriers specific to your application.

What are the options ?

Case by case integration
The first case is tempting for any architect, but maintenance and improvement of the spaghetti you soon will end up with is not. Same goes for costs.

SAML based integration
The idea with SAML is great, but the adoption rate is still frustratingly low, our experience indicates somewhere between 10-20% in large organizations and close to 0% in mid-sized ones. In most cases, a solution based purely on SAML will leave more than 90% of the customers unserved.

Delegated authentication
Allowing end users to use their internal logins and passwords on the login screen of the SaaS/Cloud application might sound like a great idea, but most customer organizations hate it when the firewall drillers arrive. Fire at will, is what most security professionals would say.

Authentication API
API's give you full flexibility, but they also require every customer to develop a connector to that API. Besides requiring developer support, it also slows down Time-To-Revenue significantly.

One-solution-fits-all ?
Yes, there is Distal !.

Distal - one solution fits all !

Distal is the solution a SaaS/Cloud application provider needs. It is built from the ground up to let application providers offer all customers automated sign-on (single sign-on) and user management based on their own user directory.

Different customers have different solutions and different expertise in place, and you need to be able to communicate with them all. Distal helps you do that, by connecting with
- customer intranet portals (all major platforms supported); or
- specialized Identity Provider solutions (supports SAML 2.0)

For you, the essential thing is to be able to serve all you customers in a way that requires as little as possible, especially from your customers, in terms of time, expertise and technology. And that is exactly what Distal was built for.

Very easy for your customer

• deployed in an hour
• no installation or programming
• no third parties
• existing systems
• familiar technology

Drives usage

Improves security

Automates administration