User Provisioning Software – Azure AD User Provisioning | SolarWinds

What is user provisioning and deprovisioning?

User account provisioning and deprovisioning are the access and account management processes used by IT teams to maintain security within an organization. 

User provisioning is an identity management process that IT teams use to manage account creation and modifications, and grant or disable access to IT resources such as Microsoft (MS) Exchange and SharePoint. These functions are typically performed through Active Directory and include setting and changing user privileges and rights for end users. 

User deprovisioning is the opposite. It is the process of removing user access to an organization’s resources. It can involve removing user accounts from authentication servers like Active Directory or from individual servers or machines. It can also involve completely removing a user’s machine from the organization and network. User deprovisioning is typically performed when a user leaves an organization. In that scenario, it is often critically important to remove a user’s access quickly to prevent security risks. 

For short-term contracted employees, IT teams can use Active Directory provisioning to automatically expire accounts. However, for regular employees, organizations either need to ensure their IT teams keep a close eye on every user’s access or use streamlined third-party provisioning tools like SolarWinds Access Rights Manager.

How does user account provisioning work?

User provisioning works by having IT teams determine and assign the specific access rights that each user in an organization requires to perform their responsibilities—without granting them access to sensitive information they do not need for their jobs.

The basic steps of provisioning in an organization include:

• Assess your current identity management program. Check if it effectively covers all your key systems and whether deprovisioning is being performed quickly.
• Conduct an inventory of your most important applications and systems. To determine which systems require access management, ask yourself, “If someone gained unauthorized access to this resource, what harm could it cause to the company?”
• Launch a pilot program to find any issues in the new user provisioning process.
• Launch the enterprise-wide user provisioning program.
• Continuously monitor your user provisioning. For the program to be successful, it needs to be monitored to ensure it continues to function effectively.

What are the benefits of automated user provisioning?

The larger and more complex an organization, the more difficult manual AD provisioning and access management can become. Manual Active Directory user account provisioning can add to IT workload, delay audits, and introduce errors that can increase security risks for the organization.

User account provisioning and deprovisioning can be tedious, but it is essential to do correctly. For larger organizations, handling the provisioning process manually may not be able to meet the high pace of change and growth. This is particularly true given that with more employees and roles, it can become more difficult to determine specific access privileges for each user.

Additionally, failing to remove access quickly when needed can leave important resources vulnerable to the actions of a malicious user. Whether that user is a hacker or a former employee seeking revenge, deprovisioning their accounts too slowly could leave the organization vulnerable. 

That’s why a user provisioning tool is critical for effective provisioning in companies of any size. Automated user provisioning tools can help meet scalability demands while providing a full audit trail of account administrative activity and access while also reducing the risk of failing to properly deprovision users.

Using tools to provision user access can also allow IT teams to save time and simultaneously increase security and productivity. These tools not only help streamline the user onboarding process, but they can also enable rapid responses to account termination requests to help prevent potential security risks. Tools like SolarWinds ARM offer role-specific templates to help standardize user credentials and aid IT teams in creating secure accounts at scale. 

How does the provisioning software in SolarWinds Access Rights Manager work?

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is designed to simplify provisioning and deprovisioning by helping IT teams automate the process while increasing visibility to reduce risk. ARM helps with user provisioning for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, so you can leverage its benefits no matter what systems you use. 

ARM is built so you can standardize user credentials with role-specific templates. When there are credential misconfigurations, Access Rights Manager helps identify the issues and trigger alerts, so you can quickly mitigate the issue. ARM is also designed to monitor for unauthorized access attempts and reports on behavior that seems suspicious. 

Additionally, ARM can help IT teams demonstrate compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS by creating detailed reports on how user accounts are provisioned and deprovisioned. With ARM, you can run customized reports on demand to more easily prove compliance whenever you need to.