ChaosSearch Streamlines Single Sign-on and Helps Companies Take Advantage of Data on AWS

ChaosSearch needed to provide single sign-on (SSO) for its enterprise users and chose to leverage Auth0 for federated identity support on AWS. Using Auth0, the company can help save time for both itself and its users, while making their life easier.

The scale and scope of data that enterprises collect day-to-day are staggering. For many companies, the search for scalable, performant, secure, and efficient data storage begins and ends with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Amazon S3 is designed for 99.999999999% (eleven 9's) of durability, and stores data for millions of applications for companies all around the world.

Getting data into Amazon S3 is one thing; what companies do with the data and how easily they can access and analyze data makes all the difference for driving innovation and business outcomes. Helping companies search and analyze data from within Amazon S3 is what motivates the team at ChaosSearch.

ChaosSearch is a fully managed, secure log search analytics service on AWS, run as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and backed by Amazon S3 as a data store. The company’s founder and chief technical officer, Thomas Hazel, built a team comprised of technologists with deep levels of expertise in the database and big data space to build the ChaosSearch platform.

“I founded ChaosSearch to create a service around object storage—based on an indexing technology I developed—and help people cost-effectively unlock the potential of the terabytes, if not petabytes, of data that they are storing in Amazon S3. Our company is driven by a combination of very unique, patent-pending technology and a team that can execute on these new ideas,” says Hazel.

“I’ve worked with most of my senior staff for more than 15 years, building these types of systems. So, we have a unique team here to tackle the challenge of helping users unlock the potential of their data on Amazon S3 without having to move the data to a third-party database or use a separate third-party solution for analysis. What if we could help customers do all of this within their Amazon S3 account? Providing that capability is at the heart of ChaosSearch.”

From the beginning, Hazel sought to leverage AWS to exploit the indexing technology he'd built and to develop the ChaosSearch platform. “I asked myself, where is the best place to leverage the technology I’ve developed and host ChaosSearch? The clear answer was Amazon S3 object storage from AWS," says Hazel. "The idea was to go where the data is and where the customers are. So, we chose Amazon S3. AWS has led the way in offering cloud services that a company like ours, a startup, can leverage and integrate quickly with our solutions.” ChaosSearch’s architecture on AWS is simple yet elegant. The platform takes substantial advantage of Amazon S3 and internal tooling the company has built.

As the company began to grow and scale, the team evaluated and discussed customer pain points with early users. Single sign-on (SSO) and easing user provisioning and access quickly became the top priority for ChaosSearch.

The beauty of the ChaosSearch platform is its ability to do more than just log and event analysis, opening up the power of the platform to multiple users within an organization. Its inherent value also creates a challenge for the team. They knew they needed to make user access for organizations as smooth and secure as possible. As Hazel explains, “Provisioning users at scale can be a real nightmare. The idea that quick and easy access to the system for our customers is standard practice is just so crucial. Helping our customers create users quickly and seamlessly, and providing SSO, became crucial to empowering customers to leverage the power of our platform efficiently.”

The team at ChaosSearch wanted to focus on developing their platform and leave federated identity support to the experts. After doing his due diligence and market research, Hazel decided to move forward with Auth0, an AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partner.

“When we looked into the APN market of vendors we may want to work with for SSO, Auth0 was top of mind," explains Hazel. "I liked what I saw regarding how we could integrate Auth0 with our product. We did a proof of concept with Auth0 and had a great experience. The team was well prepared and accommodating, and using Auth0 seemed like the cleanest, most straightforward implementation for us."

Today, Auth0 is the only third-party software ChaosSearch uses. For companies using ChaosSearch, the integration with Auth0 and the flexibility of Auth0 to meet different company requirements simplifies things. "If there are hundreds of people at an organization with an SSO setup defined, then it makes their lives a lot easier; it's all about helping users gain quick access without the headache and pain of managing and configuring users," says Hazel. "The time savings, particularly at scale, is significant."

For the ChaosSearch team, Auth0 drastically reduces the time it takes to securely onboard new users. This streamlined capability has been vital for the team as they've launched automated free trials through their website. 

“Having the ability to use something like Google authentication, for example, through Auth0 helps us know who the customer is right away; they click on and quickly get into our system," Hazel explains. "It changes our business model because of the number of people who can now get access to their data through our service. Using Auth0 on AWS streamlines enterprise federation. With Auth0, we can get tens of hundreds of customers on immediately, saving us the administrative time we can then put toward other value-added projects, and it makes our customers' lives easier. It's a game-changer."

Read the Auth0 case study to learn more about ChaosSearch’s work with Auth0.