Google Apps Directory Vs AWS Directory Service

Many of the cloud-forward organizations are leveraging both Google Apps and AWS. Not surprisingly, these products serve in 2 different functions: productivity and production. An organization’s email and productivity infrastructure needs could also be met by Google Apps via their cloud-based Apps suite, while their production infrastructure is usually hosted at AWS. Each of those pieces of the IT infrastructure is critical. Which one is more important? that might be hard to argue either way, and therein lies the matter. Should you let Google control your identities and federate them to AWS, or should you one let AWS control your identities and federate them to Google? Google Apps Directory is pitted against AWS Directory Services, so to talk.

The Disconnect Between Google and AWS

After digging further into the matter, the apparent question is: how does a corporation manage its identity infrastructure? Users got to be managed across both major services – Google and AWS. All users might not need access to AWS servers, but nearly the whole organization must access Google Apps. In fact, a case might be made to utilize Google Apps Directory because of the core identity and access control solution. Unfortunately, Google Apps Directory isn't a real directory service. It doesn’t provide authentication capabilities for devices like those found on-premises and within the cloud such as, say, AWS. So, while the identity source might be Google, it wouldn’t hook up with AWS.

With AWS Directory Service, organizations can get a full-fledged Samba instance. Samba functions very similar to Active Directory. It handles Windows devices reasonably well, but struggles with Linux. If you're curious about managing devices with policies, then you, too, will tussle with AWS Directory Service. Here’s another thing to consider: there's no interface to your rescue. You’ll have to leverage Windows Server tools if you would like to manage Samba at AWS. Finally, there's the difficulty of AWS Directory Service only working within AWS; it doesn’t hook up with Google Apps.

DaaS Makes the Connection Between the Systems, Applications, and Networks. 

The challenge really doesn’t dwell making a choice between Google Apps Directory versus AWS Directory Service. These services are often used within their own figurative four walls, but they do not lend much support within the way of being an Identity-as-a-Service sort of solution. If organizations would really like to leverage one cloud-based directory service to attach to Google Apps, AWS, applications (cloud and on-premises), networks, and systems, neither of those solutions will work. Luckily, there's a replacement identity and access management platform that solves this issue. what's it? and It’s called Directory-as-a-Service (DaaS), and cloud-based directory service. DaaS integrates with both Google Apps and AWS, so you don’t need to choose one or the opposite. It also connects to all or any of your on-premises systems, cloud applications, and WiFi networks. DaaS truly may be a centralized user management platform for all of the IT resources a user needs.

If you'd wish to learn more about how you'll leverage a cloud-based directory service, drop us a note. We’d be happy to debate how Google Apps, AWS Directory Service, and Directory-as-a-Service all work in conjunction with each other.