Managed Cloud RADIUS Vs. Microservices
Unsurprisingly, organizations with an on-premise setup have struggled to meet current business needs. In that environment, applications are built as a single unit, and every aspect, such as the data access layer, user interface, and business objectives, is knit together in a single design. Any change requires redesigning and deploying the application from scratch, which proved unscalable as business needs grew.
This led to the evolution of microservices, where applications are designed as independent services connected through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), enabling them to scale independently. They make easily scalable applications that are faster to deploy, too.
However, microservices add architectural complexity. Splitting a monolithic application into separate services makes maintenance and coordination more challenging. This, in turn, increases organizational overhead costs due to increased testing, debugging, and deployment needs.
Alternatively, a managed service is a third-party service provider that manages complete business needs through customized applications, advanced user interfaces, and APIs that communicate effectively for all-around solutions.
What is a Microservice?
A microservice is designed to be an independent application with a narrow scope. The applications work together through custom APIs and are deployed as part of a larger microservice architecture. This is a software development strategy in which an application is built as a collection of independently maintained and operated applications or services that can work independently or together.
Each microservice supports a specific business capability and communicates with other services through APIs. This modular approach streamlines development by enabling effortless scalability and deployment. Microservices are well-suited for cloud environments and can be deployed across public, private, or hybrid clouds, depending on business needs.
What is A Managed Service?
Source: Hitachi
A managed service is a third-party service that handles the day-to-day operations of an organization’s applications. Its benefit is that your organization can save money and time, as it costs a fraction of what it would cost to manage your applications with an internal IT team. Your IT team will have fewer tickets as configuration issues or timeouts are handled entirely by the third-party service provider.
A managed service provider typically has years of expertise in the particular service. Managed applications also experience a considerable reduction in downtime, resulting in better performance than on-premise applications.
Benefits Of A Managed Service
As a growing organization’s business needs expand, its in-house IT team requires additional resources, resulting in higher costs, increased manpower, and a shift in focus from core tasks. A managed service takes complete onus of the IT services with experienced professionals, which results in improved efficiency and lower downtime. Some other benefits of a managed service are:
Easier To Scale
The most significant advantage of using a managed service for your IT needs is that you can scale the infrastructure as required. With a managed service, your infrastructure is mainly hosted on the cloud and can be scaled remotely. You do not need to add servers to your existing infrastructure or hire more manpower to manage expansions.
Better Compliance Management
There are complex compliance regulation needs that ensure a business’s integrity, efficiency, and cost management, which requires specialized solutions to monitor and streamline. A managed service provider provides specific solutions relevant to different business needs.
They identify your business’s existing gaps and risks and develop solutions for access control, data handling, and incident response protocols. They provide constant monitoring and reporting of metrics for the timely detection and resolution of anomalies.
Lower Costs
A managed service provider usually charges a monthly, per-device rate. This would cost a fraction of what you’ll pay to set up and maintain the whole application setup internally as they operate on economies of scale, i.e., for multiple businesses simultaneously. A third-party service provider also lets you free up internal resources that can be put to better use and be economical in the long run.
Extended Support
Most managed service providers offer an extended support team and assign a single point of contact, such as an account manager or service representative, to streamline customer communication and support. Any downtime issues would be prioritized as listed in your service level agreement so the support team can remediate the issue for less downtime than having an internal team fix it. You will also have dedicated customer success who will keep you updated with all the latest offerings and updates.
SecureW2’s Managed RADIUS And PKI Service
A managed RADIUS server hosted in the cloud offers scalable authentication services. It can handle multiple clients’ requests simultaneously without performance issues. Clients can add users to their network without deploying additional servers, reducing costs and saving valuable resources.
With a managed cloud RADIUS server and a PKI, you can enforce stringent authentication policies by leveraging digital certificates instead of passwords. A PKI with a cloud RADIUS server allows you to use EAP-TLS protocol for certificate-based authentication for a more resilient network. It also provides granular access controls where you can set and monitor who and what accesses the network in real time.
The Best Managed Cloud RADIUS Solution
SecureW2 has built an ecosystem of managed services that simplifies the deployment of cloud-based 802.1X network security and other services. Our Managed Gateway API automates the distribution of digital certificates to all network-managed endpoints. It integrates with major MDMs and identity providers like Google, Okta, and Azure via digital certificates, allowing users to authenticate to dozens of services without relying solely on passwords.
SecureW2’s JoinNow MultiOS provides a safe way for unmanaged/BYOD devices to securely authenticate themselves to your network without the risk of misconfiguration. It works with all the commonly used operating systems and has a user-friendly interface for step-by-step onboarding guidance.
Finally, Cloud RADIUS lets you use digital certificates instead of passwords via the EAP-TLS protocol on a WPA2-Enterprise network for a resilient, zero-trust network. It is powered by a dynamic policy engine, which enables it to make real-time policy decisions for group policy and user segmentation.
Click here to learn more about building a secure passwordless network for your organization.
