The Computerworld Honors Program
Honoring those who use Information Technology to benefit society
LOCATION:
Denver, CO, US

YEAR:
2008

STATUS:
Laureate

CATEGORY:
Business and Related Services

NOMINATING COMPANY:
Morgan Stanley

ORGANIZATION:
Ping Identity

PROJECT NAME:
Secure Internet Single Sign-On with PingFederate



Introductory Overview

Ping Identity provides organizations with the ability to directly access resources securely over the Internet without the need to re-login. Rearden Commerce chose Ping Identity's PingFederate product to provide secure Internet single sign-on (SSO). Rearden Commerce, Inc. provides the first on-demand personal assistant that helps people quickly find, purchase and manage services for travel planning, dining reservations, package shipping, web conferencing, event tickets, and more, based on personal preferences and company policies. Rearden Commerce instantly connects users with over 137,000 merchants, providing the tools people need to access and manage services like calendar and address book integration, email invites, and mobile alerts. The Rearden Personal Assistant manages preferred vendor relationships and applies corporate policy to the integrated process, and it is the only commerce platform to orchestrate all aspects of business trips, including spending for associated services.
Rearden Commerce’s 1500+ customers range from small/medium enterprises to the Fortune 500, including ConAgra Foods, Glaxo Smith Kline and JDSU.

By delivering an addictive experience for users and establishing a highly successful distribution channel including American Express Business Travel, Rearden Commerce’s customer base grew by more than 2,000 percent in 2008. With this rapid growth and the need to securely share applications, Rearden Commerce faced the challenge of scaling infrastructure across its enterprise and beyond to its corporate customers and vendor partners. Rearden Commerce delivers its solution as Software as a Service (SaaS), which ensures that users sign-on easily, quickly, seamlessly and securely when moving from one application to another, without having to remember numerous passwords and log on repeatedly. Rearden Commerce initially offered a proprietary single sign-on (SSO) application which required customers to hire technical staff, build custom integrations, and manage a plethora of protocols. As a result, customer deployments required more time and resources than desired, and user adoption lagged expectations.

With PingFederate, Rearden Commerce now enables its corporate customers to leverage existing identity systems, maintain control over credentials, manage all policies and allow users to easily and securely interact with service providers. The results with PingFederate were astonishing:
- PingFederate deployed in just 2 weeks.
- Within 1 month, federation was complete with fifteen companies, securely supporting 10-20% of all user sessions.
- Management of federation, single sign-on and password management transitioned out of core engineering at a faster than expected pace.
- Activation/configuration groups are now self-sufficient.

The Importance of Technology
How did the technology you used contribute to this project and why was it important?
To improve customer satisfaction and support its record growth, Rearden Commerce adopted a standards-based approach to secure Internet SSO. Rearden Commerce selected PingFederate® to provide users safe access to its solution and services without the need to re-login. Standards-based secure Internet SSO enabled Rearden Commerce and its partners to securely break down the walls between corporate portals and the tools people want to access. PingFederate’s technology to easily and rapidly deliver secure Internet single sign-on was key to successfully delivering Rearden Commerce's solution for partners. By utilizing standards, PingFederate eliminated the need for Rearden Commerce to develop custom code for each partner connection and is able to meet the unique requirements of each partner from a single system. Partner connections that used to take months to develop with custom code, now take minutes to configure with PingFederate’s GUI. And due to simplicity and focused capabilities of PingFederate, the amount of education both internally and with partners was drastically reduced. Individual enterprises now leverage existing identity systems, maintain control over the credentials, manage policies and provides users easy and secure interaction with service providers.

Benefits
Has your project helped those it was designed to help?   Yes

Has your project fundamentally changed how tasks are performed?   Yes

What new advantage or opportunity does your project provide to people?
In just two weeks, Rearden Commerce deployed PingFederate. Within 1 month, Rearden Commerce connected with 15 companies to provide SSO, supporting 10% to 20% of all user sessions. Secure Internet SSO has become a competitive differentiator for Rearden Commerce, and business operations have become more efficient with the use of PingFederate. One large Rearden Commerce customer has experienced a 93 percent reduction in the number of support calls requesting password resets, and a 67 percent reduction in calls requesting help with user names. Activation groups are now self-sufficient, without new protocols to support, or the need to repeatedly develop tools for each new partner deployment.


If possible, include an example of how the project has benefited a specific individual, enterprise or organization. Please include personal quotes from individuals who have directly benefited from your work.
“After just one month of using the Rearden Commerce platform with single sign-on, one of our largest customers achieved 81 percent user adoption,– a success milestone that greatly surpassed their expectations. Much of that success is attributed to our secure, standards-based single sign-on, capabilities, allowing seamless access and a smooth transition for their end users.” Chuck Mortimore - Director of Platform Services, Rearden Commerce


Originality
Is it the first, the only, the best or the most effective application of its kind?   All of the above

What are the exceptional aspects of your project?
PingFederate is the world’s first rapidly deployable identity federation software to provide secure Internet single sign-on. Rearden Commerce was able to download the software from the Internet, install in a few days, allow their partners to leverage their existing identity management systems, and turn-up partner connections in minutes.


Difficulty
What were the most important obstacles that had to be overcome in order for your work to be successful? Technical problems? Resources? Expertise? Organizational problems?
Not applicable
Often the most innovative projects encounter the greatest resistance when they are originally proposed. If you had to fight for approval or funding, please provide a summary of the objections you faced and how you overcame them.
Not applicable

Success
Has your project achieved or exceeded its goals?   Exceeded

Is it fully operational?   No

How do you see your project's innovation benefiting other applications, organizations, or global communities?
Rearden Commerce’s leadership is a catalyst for additional SSO deployment opportunities. Customers of Rearden Commerce expressed a strong preference for secure Internet single sign-on; many customers were beginning internal initiatives to leverage SSO’s ease of use, interoperability and cost savings. By selecting standards based self-contained software, Rearden Commerce ensured that every corporate customer has unlimited opportunities for SSO while maintaining strict control over credentials.

How quickly has your targeted audience of users embraced your innovation? Or, how rapidly do you predict they will?
Due to the highly visible nature of secure Internet single sign-on, and the impact it has on users’ day-to-day activities, Rearden Commerce has seen increases in user adoption of SSO enabled applications up to 81%.

Digital/Visual Materials
The Program welcomes nominees to submit digital and visual images with their Case Study. We are currently only accepting .gif, .jpg and .xls files that are 1MB or smaller. The submission of these materials is not required; however, please note that a maximum of three files will be accepted per nominee. These files will be added to the end of your Case Study and will be labeled as "Appendix 1", "Appendix 2" or "Appendix 3." Finally, feel free to reference these images in the text of your Case Study by specifically referring to them as "Appendix 1", "Appendix 2" or "Appendix 3."

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