Single sign-on (SSO) and Web access control emerged as efforts to deal with similar problems:

• Remembering multiple passwords for multiple systems is complicated
• Updating and managing multiple passwords on multiple systems is difficult and time-consuming

Single sign-on solutions are very complicated and are challenging to design and implement due to the wide range of systems addressed by the solution. Because of this, some organizations have chosen to deploy Web Access Control solutions to address the problems listed above with Web-based applications relatively quickly.

Although Password Management solutions address a wider range of issues than either Single Sign-On or Web Access Control, a potential Password Management solution may show reduced return on investment (ROI) under evaluation if the organization has already deployed a Single Sign-On solution. This is because some of the basis of the Password Management solution’s return on investment (ROI) has already been addressed by the Single Sign-On solution.

To read more about these application types, download our whitepaper "Password management vs. SSO".

The main considerations for evaluating a Password Management system are as follows:

• Password complexity - Users might have an unwieldy number of passwords for different systems. As a result, they forget their passwords and/or violate security policy in an effort to remember them.
• User productivity – Users who have forgotten passwords spend time resetting, unlocking or creating new passwords, and frequently they enlist the services of the Help Desk, costing the organization $10-$31 per call (source:Garnter).
• Frequent creation of new user populations or systems – This activity requires the creation of many new account passwords. Password Synchronization can significantly improve the productivity of this task. In this area, User Provisioning and Password Management intersect.
• Security violations – As mentioned above, when users have too many passwords they may violate security policy in an attempt to remember them all, by such means as attaching notes containing the passwords on the computer, reusing passwords, and using simple passwords.