Okta Connectors in Action: iC Consult’s Oracle EBS Connector

Over 25 years of developing truly intelligent Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, iC Consult has completed more than 3,000 successful projects. And in the 10-plus years since the company first partnered with Okta, iC Consult has earned a reputation as experts not just in IAM but in Okta’s technology – in fact, iC Consult built what is now the Okta Access Gateway.

Many of their Customer and Workforce Identity projects require integrating modern solutions into existing architectures and applications. Fortunately, iC Consult has the know-how to leverage Okta connectors to seamlessly bridge these technology gaps.

The Need: Securely Integrate On-prem Oracle EBS with Cloud-native IAM

Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) is a comprehensive set of integrated business applications encompassing a wide range of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, and other business software modules.

In practice, EBS is tightly integrated into on-premises applications and is used by functional teams across HR, supply chain, finance, etc. – which means that many people throughout the organization need access.

Due to the scope, scale, and complexity of EBS deployments, companies are understandably reluctant to modify their solutions or migrate the same functionality into the cloud. However, they also recognize an urgent and growing need to integrate EBS with cloud-native solutions to strengthen security, governance, and productivity.

Governance, in particular, is vital because of the typically wide range and large number of people who use EBS and the highly sensitive data it contains.

To address this widespread need, iC Consult used Okta connectors – a collection of API endpoints and data manipulation functions sequenced as flows – to integrate Oracle EBS with Okta Identity Governance. 

The Solution: Oracle EBS Connector

The connector provides entitlement management for Oracle EBS, ensuring that the right people have the right level of access to the right information, thereby reducing security risks and increasing productivity.

Benefits for Oracle EBS Customers

By linking the EBS deployment with Okta Workforce Identity Cloud, the Oracle EBS connector allows customers to:

• Reduce security risks through precise and timely access management, including strong authentication and role-based access control (RBAC)
• Lower administrative costs by automating user provisioning and deprovisioning and other aspects of IAM
• Increase flexibility by easily accommodating additional users and applications and tailoring policies to scale with the organization’s needs
• Better meet governance requirements thanks to more robust security, detailed logging, and straightforward access request, approval, and certification capabilities

How does the Oracle EBS Connector Work?

The Oracle EBS connector uses the Okta SCIM connector, which acts as a SCIM server and an intermediary between Okta and the on-premises EBS application – allowing organizations to provision users, pull in entitlements from EBS, and assign entitlements/responsibilities to users.

As a result of this tight integration, organizations are now able to:

• Centrally manage user identities, access, and permissions to streamline access control across EBS and other applications
• Automate EBS user provisioning and deprovisioning to ensure users have the right level of access when they need it — and to revoke access when it’s no longer required
• Ensure only authorized users have access to EBS by enforcing strong authentication and access policies and by integrating multi-factor authentication (MFA) to further lower the risk of unauthorized access
• Define and manage roles and permissions within EBS to ensure users have the minimum access required for their jobs

To learn more about iC Consult, the Oracle EBS connector, and Okta connectors, reach out to our experts.