Company-wide single sign-on with Keycloak

A typical hundred-person company runs fifteen to twenty information systems: email, files, CRM, task tracker, wiki, accounting, VPN. Each has its own user database and its own password. The result is predictable: passwords end up on sticky notes, get reused across systems, and the helpdesk spends a good share of its time resetting them.

Single sign-on (SSO) fixes this with one architectural move: applications stop storing passwords altogether and delegate identity checks to a central service. An employee logs in once in the morning — and every work system opens without another login. Keycloak is the most widely used open product of this class: it speaks the standard OpenID Connect and SAML protocols, so practically any modern application connects to it — from Nextcloud and GitLab to legacy systems through adapters.

A rollout usually starts with directory federation: Keycloak connects to your existing Active Directory or LDAP and picks up all the accounts — nobody has to be re-created. Applications then move to SSO one by one, with no big bang: non-critical services first, then email and files. At every step the old login keeps working until the new one is verified.

The security gains are a chapter of their own. Two-factor authentication is switched on once in Keycloak and instantly covers every connected system: one-time codes from an app, hardware keys or push confirmations. Password policies, lockout after failed attempts, a login audit trail — all managed from one console. And when an employee leaves, the administrator disables a single account — and every access closes that very second.

We deliver Keycloak end to end: federation with your directory, connecting the applications, two-factor authentication and admin training. Write to us via the contact page and we will sketch what this looks like in your exact landscape.