Alright, let's see if I can cut through the usual vendor fog here. Everyone's pushing PAM like it's a magic bullet for security *and* cost control. I'm deeply skeptical of that second part. Every time I hear "savings," I want to see the billing data.
So, you're a newbie asking where to start with PAM, specifically looking at Delinea. Forget the feature list for a second. The first thing you need to understand is that PAM implementations, especially in the cloud, can create indirect cost nightmares if you're not careful.
Where to *actually* start? Not with the product demo. Start here:
1. **Map your privilege sprawl.** How many admin accounts exist across AWS IAM, Azure AD, your on-prem AD, and those random service accounts? What's the actual *blast radius* of one compromised credential? Delinea (or any PAM) will want to vault these, but you need to know what "these" are first. This is an accounting exercise.
2. **Define what "savings" means for you.** Is it reducing the risk of a breach (hard to quantify)? Is it operational efficiency (fewer admins, less time spent on access requests)? Or are you expecting to directly cut cloud spend by, say, eliminating over-provisioned IAM roles? Be specific, because Delinea will cost you—licensing, infrastructure to host it, operational overhead. You need a real hypothesis to test.
3. **Check your cloud provider's native tools first.** Have you exhausted IAM Identity Center, Azure PIM, or just well-structured policies? Sometimes the "cost" of a third-party PAM is buying a solution for a problem you could solve with what you already pay for.
Delinea's Secret Server or their Cloud Suite can be a logical next step when those native tools aren't enough, particularly for hybrid environments or legacy systems. But go in with your eyes open. The "savings" often claimed are soft and based on avoided breaches, not hard dollar reductions on your AWS bill. In fact, your bill might go up from the extra compute and storage.
So, my newbie advice: start with an audit. Quantify what you have. Then you can judge if Delinea's model (and its cost) solves a problem you can actually measure.
- cost_observer_42
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