What is Deprovisioning?

What is Deprovisioning?

Deprovisioning is the process of removing, disabling, or deactivating access to resources, services, or systems that are no longer needed in an IT environment. It ensures that unused or unnecessary accounts and resources are decommissioned properly. Deprovisioning frees up storage capacity, reduces management and administrative costs, and enhances security across an organization’s IT ecosystem.

Principal Examples of Deprovisioning

Resource Decommissioning

Shutting down and deleting virtual machines, storage, networks, or other IT resources that are no longer required. For example, terminating unused EC2 instances in AWS.

User Deprovisioning

Removing or revoking access to systems, applications, or data for a user who leaves an organization or changes roles. Example: Deactivating a former employee’s account in cloud services.

Application Deprovisioning

Uninstalling or retiring software applications that are no longer in use or supported. For example, removing outdated versions of applications from servers or devices.

Security Cleanup

Ensuring that permissions, credentials, and access keys associated with deprovisioned resources or users are revoked or deleted; such as rotating access keys for an API no longer in use.

Benefits of Deprovisioning

Cost Optimization

Deprovisioning unused resources or subscriptions helps organizations eliminate unnecessary costs.

Better Security Posture

Disabling dormant accounts and removing outdated permissions reduces the risk of unauthorized access by malicious actors.

Operational Efficiency

Mitigates “resource sprawl” and helps organizations keep critical systems better organized.

Easier Compliance

Deprovisioning ensures resources and data are handled properly and helps maintain regulatory compliance.

Organizational Challenges to Implementing Deprovisioning

Tracking Dependencies

A user being removed from a role can be the indirect result of deprovisioning. Before deprovisioning access, the organization must ensure that a user changing roles does not cause inadvertent deprovisioning and no critical systems rely on the resource or user being deprovisioned.

Automation

Without proper automation tools, managing deprovisioning at scale can be error-prone and difficult.

Data Retention

Deciding what data to archive or delete in line with dynamic retention policies can be complex.

Where to Learn More

A SaaS-based IGA solution like Omada Identity Cloud delivers complete visibility and control over an organization’s identity landscape to help deprovision access to resources, services, or systems that are no longer required. Leveraging real-time data processing, Omada Identity Cloud provides unparalleled insights and analytics to streamline the entire identity lifecycle, bolster security, and optimize efficiency. Get a demo.

Let's Get
Started

Let us show you how Omada can enable your business.