Cirrus Identity

Cirrus Identity is a specialized provider of cloud-hosted identity and access management (IAM) solutions, primarily serving the higher education and research sectors. The company was founded in 2013 by Dedra Chamberlin, CEO, and a co-founding software developer from the University of California Berkeley's "CalNet" Identity and Access Management program. Chamberlin's extensive background as Deputy Director of Identity and Access Management at UC Berkeley and UCSF, and her role in shaping the University of California's system-wide identity strategy, directly informed the company's mission to resolve the complexities of digital identity.

The firm addresses the significant challenge large organizations face in managing secure access for external users—individuals not part of the core enterprise, such as university applicants, parents, alumni, and research collaborators. Its business model is centered on providing a suite of managed Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions that reduce technical risk and operational costs for institutions. Cirrus Identity generates revenue through these subscription-based services, which are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise systems.

The product portfolio acts as a comprehensive toolkit for IAM challenges. Key offerings include the Cirrus Gateway, which enables social identity logins (e.g., Google, LinkedIn) for enterprise services, and the Cirrus Bridge, which connects commercial identity providers like Okta and Azure AD to multilateral trust federations such as InCommon and eduGAIN, a common requirement in the research and education community that most commercial solutions do not support. Additional products facilitate account linking, sponsored invitations for guest users, and protocol translation between SAML, CAS, and OIDC. This allows clients like Duke University and EDUCAUSE to streamline access for a wide range of users, eliminating the need for creating and managing separate guest accounts and reducing support overhead.

Keywords: identity management, access management, single sign-on, SSO, higher education IT, research collaboration, cloud identity, federated identity, InCommon, eduGAIN, SAML, CAS, external user access, guest user management, social login, identity provider, IAM solutions, Dedra Chamberlin, account linking, authentication proxy