Don’t Mess with an Admin’s Workflow Recipe — Choose a PAM Solution with Native Client Capabilities

Experienced chefs, who have organized and maintained their kitchens for years, rely upon their routine and the order they have established. They have created and choreographed all their tricks, shortcuts, and processes to enable the optimum execution of their duties. If a new element or process is introduced that doesn’t seamlessly fit, even if it provides a significant benefit, the disruption to a chef’s well-oiled routine will be met with frustration, and possibly rebellion.

Disruptive technologies — the ‘new tools in the kitchen’ — are providing myriad benefits to enterprises of every size and description. They are changing the way industries and consumers operate. The goal of innovative digital solutions is to replace less agile predecessors with superior features that simplify, accelerate and secure business flow and execution.

One such advancement, Privileged Access Management, (PAM) is now a business imperative for securing organizations of every size, in every industry. PAM controls access and permissions to IT resources and data, and is a critical part of a zero trust architecture. With the expanding perimeter-less enterprise, all user access and permissions need tight controls, including privileged accounts and users who manage the infrastructure.

Admins manage infrastructure that runs business operations through clients, like DBMS software and SQL Server Management Studio. They work with HTTP, RDP and other protocols, and tools like PuTTY, that support several network protocols. Admins know their client software inside and out. Many have created workflows they have used for years. They rely upon their unique recipe of shortcuts, scripts and automation they’ve built to save time and reduce complexity. When that familiar organization and structure is disrupted by new solutions that aren’t a seamless fit, they experience frustration and impaired productivity.

The right PAM solution must secure infrastructure without disrupting workflows or causing friction. When PAM tools lack the features and capabilities of native client software and don’t support the protocols, admins must take extra steps like separately logging into PAM and authenticating using an RDP window. This interference in their normal sequence will cause many to lose some capabilities and the resulting frustration will cause most to find a way to work around the PAM solution.

Native client capabilities within PAM require no API integration, code or scripting. When PAM operates at the protocol level, it natively supports Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and IOS — on any type of device. Admins just use their credentials to log into PAM, and they can access all of their resources using their favorite clients, and the automation, tools, scripts and shortcuts they’ve always used. PAM with native client architecture is a crucial security enabler that eliminates the friction and impediments that solutions lacking these features impose.

With native client-enabled PAM, admins, developers and database admins can continue using their client of choice for all of their job functions. They are responsible for numerous systems that must be secured, and the data kept private.

The PAM solution an enterprise chooses should be an advantage, one that is transparent to the client software, and frictionless. While providing necessary asset security, PAM that supports native client software will make onboarding easy and efficient, without requiring additional training, extra steps or disruptive barriers.

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Originally published at https://revbits.com on June 16, 2022.