Gartner defines access management (AM) as tools that include authentication and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, and that establish, manage and enforce runtime access controls for modern standards-based and classic web applications and APIs. AM’s purpose is to enable SSO access for people (employees, consumers and other users) and machines to protected applications in a streamlined and consistent way that enhances the user experience. AM is also responsible for providing security controls to protect the user session in runtime, enforcing authentication and authorization using adaptive access. Lastly, AM can provide identity context for other cybersecurity tools and reliant applications to enable identity-first security.
Password management (PM) tools are products that provide users with the means to reset their own passwords after an account lockout or when they forget their passwords. PM tools can also synchronize passwords for users across multiple systems, allowing users to access multiple applications with the same password.
Gartner defines SaaS management platforms (SMP) as software tools that aim to help organizations discover, manage, optimize and automate the SaaS application life cycle from one centralized console. Core SMP capabilities include discovery, cost optimization, employee self-service via an application store, insights to increase adoption and automation of onboarding/offboarding activities. As SaaS adoption accelerates, IT leaders struggle to discover and support SaaS-hosted applications in accordance with company, market or geographic policies and regulations. Increased SaaS costs — combined with limited visibility into the entire SaaS portfolio (including unapproved SaaS) and high levels of overdeployed and underconsumed licenses — result in significant financial, operational and cybersecurity risk.