Illustrative solution brief · Proposed selections
Explore a proposed Keycloak application sign-in design with ownership from approval to account removal. See where open source fits, where native application behavior still matters and how the lifecycle would be checked.
The challenge
Simplify application sign-in and make account setup, recovery, administrator access and removal easier to manage.
Illustrative 50-user professional-services firm with six applications that can support the selected federation pattern.
Simplify application sign-in and make account setup, recovery, administrator access and removal easier to manage.
Application SSO and lifecycle design for the pilot applications. Network admission and device management remain separate scopes.
Every count, product selection, implementation and financial input below is illustrative. Actual customer results and realized ROI/profit have not been supplied.
Start with the work people need to do, the information they handle and the systems they already use. Check security, compatibility, support and recovery needs before comparing costs.
For candidates that pass the gates, score functional fit 30%, operational maintainability 25%, integration and data portability 20%, three-year total cost 15%, and supplier/support resilience 10%. These are proposed weights, not completed vendor test results.
Run a representative pilot, negative tests and recovery exercise. Price hosting, retention, patching, engineering, support, training and exit. A lower license bill wins only when the complete solution meets the requirement.
Pilot the open-source identity layer using the supported OIDC/SAML interfaces, with a maintained production configuration.
Alternative and decision trigger: Prefer an existing licensed identity platform if it already meets the requirement at lower incremental total cost. Protocol support does not prove an application integration.
Define the source of identity and role ownership; keep privileged and emergency paths explicit.
Alternative and decision trigger: A second directory is justified only by a documented requirement. Keycloak alone is not endpoint management or a complete identity-governance program.
Budget TLS, persistence, patching, monitoring, recovery and specialist support. Rehearse the recovery and application logout/removal paths.
Alternative and decision trigger: A supported commercial distribution or managed identity service may reduce operator burden. License savings are tested against the complete operating cost.
The customer approves identity, roles and removal; operators apply the agreed changes.
Federation connects a representative application and verifies required claims and authorization.
Access, recovery and removal tests produce an acceptance record and accountable exceptions.
Inventory applications, protocols, groups, local accounts and existing license entitlements.
Approve roles and recovery, configure one representative app and use synthetic identities.
Move applications in agreed batches; preserve a tested emergency path and rollback to the previous trusted integration.
Test authorized and denied access, session behavior, removal and restore; train primary and backup operators.
These are required pilot checks, not tests already completed for a customer.
Six-application SSO component for 50 synthetic users, not a full managed IT subscription.
USD, 36 months, no discounting or inflation. The commercial assembly is hypothetical, not a vendor quote. Open-source license assumptions apply only to the selected community component; paid platforms, support and hosting remain explicit.
| Input or result | Hypothetical commercial assembly | Proposed L8DT assembly |
|---|---|---|
| One-time setup | $7,000 | $9,500 |
| Monthly licenses | $600 | $0 |
| Monthly infrastructure/storage | $100 | $250 |
| Monthly operating service | $600 | $800 |
| Customer operator effort / month | 6 hours | 8 hours |
| Monthly cash outlay | $1,300 | $1,050 |
| 36-month cash TCO | $53,800 | $47,300 |
| 36-month economic TCO incl. valued effort | $67,840 | $66,020 |
$6,500 over 36 months; 12.08% of the commercial cash TCO.
13.74%. Formula: (commercial cash TCO − proposed cash TCO) ÷ proposed cash TCO. This compares hypothetical avoided expenditure with the proposed component investment.
10 months. Formula: round up positive additional setup ÷ positive recurring monthly cash difference. No interest or time value included.
$500 in year one; $3,000 per subsequent year. Assumes the modeled costs are recognized as operating expenses, equal revenue and unchanged other costs. Capitalization, depreciation and taxes may change accounting profit.
2 additional customer hours/month at $65/hour. Valued effort is not a payroll saving. Economic benefit including effort: $1,820. Add 30% to proposed operating-service cost: 36-month cash advantage becomes $-2,140.
Actual implementation, measured ROI and realized profit: NOT PROVIDED. No revenue uplift, avoided breach, uptime improvement or staffing reduction is assumed.
Application licenses, endpoint/MDM, network AAA, application rewrites, privileged-access software, data migration and taxes are excluded equally. Production availability and support commitments require scoped engineering.
A signed scope and current supplier quotes replace these assumptions before any service commitment.
The intended result
Test approved access, privileged paths and removal across the selected applications. Validate product fit and operating cost for the customer; the proposed selections and savings here remain illustrative.
Define the actual assets, permissions, coverage, costs and acceptance with a Service Champion.