John Martinez

Technical Evangelist, has had a long 30+ year career in systems engineering and architecture, but has spent the last 13+ years working on the Cloud, and specifically, Cloud Security. He's currently the Technical Evangelist at StrongDM, taking the message of Zero Trust Privileged Access Management (PAM) to the world. As a practitioner, he architected and created cloud automation, DevOps, and security and compliance solutions at Netflix and Adobe. He worked closely with customers at Evident.io, where he was telling the world about how cloud security should be done at conferences, meetups and customer sessions. Before coming to StrongDM, he lead an innovations and solutions team at Palo Alto Networks, working across many of the company's security products.

StrongDM has been featured in Forbes, The New Stack, VentureBeat, DevOps.com, TechCrunch, and Fortune.

Expertise

Privileged Access Management, Access, Compare, AWS, Authentication, Role-Based Access Control, Kubernetes, Security, Policy, Auditing

Latest blog posts from John

3 Best Enterprise VPN Alternatives for Business in 2025

This article will introduce several best business VPN alternatives to help you secure remote access using the infrastructure you already have. You’ll see how teams of all sizes—from three-person startups to large organizations like Peloton—have replaced outdated VPN architecture with secure, scalable, auditable solutions built for modern computing.

Alternatives to Google Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) is a Google Cloud Platform service that centralizes user access to SaaS applications and other cloud resources accessed by HTTPS. IAP secures authentication for requests made to virtual machines running on GCP and other cloud-based and on-premises applications, only granting access to users you authorize. With IAP, users can connect from untrusted networks without using a VPN.

Alternatives to Delinea (formerly Thycotic & Centrify)

Thycotic was founded in 1996 as a consulting company and has evolved into a leading provider of Privileged Access Management (PAM). Thycotic’s Privilege Manager is a tool that allows organizations to secure access for privileged administrators (typically systems and database administrators) to Windows Servers, Linux servers, and some database management systems through a centralized authentication method. It does not secure access to modern and cloud-native databases, Kubernetes clusters, the

Alternatives to AWS Cognito

AWS Cognito is a user authentication service that lets you add access control to your web and mobile apps. Cognito manages sign-up, sign-in, password changes, token refresh, data synchronization, and updates to user account attributes. The service is initially free for AWS users, and the pricing model scales as your user base grows.

Alternatives to Tailscale

Tailscale is a zero-configuration virtual private cloud that builds secure networks for WireGuard-encrypted traffic. Tailscale replaces traditional VPNs with a coordination node that acts as a control plane to manage keys and identities. This allows you to create a secure network between cloud resources without the need for firewall configuration changes. However, if your goal is to centralize and secure access to databases, servers, Kubernetes, and more, a VPN (even a fancy modern one) may not

Alternatives to HashiCorp Boundary

HashiCorp Boundary is an open-source identity access management (IAM) tool that facilitates secure user access to dynamic hosts and critical infrastructure across environments. However, if you need a simple and secure way to manage access to databases, Kubernetes clusters, cloud CLIs, switches, routers, or internal web applications, there are other services to consider. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at a few alternatives and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. First, a quick

Alternatives to CyberArk

CyberArk’s Privileged Access Manager is a tool that allows organizations to secure access for privileged administrators (typically systems and database administrators) to Windows Servers, Linux servers, and some database management systems via a centralized authentication method. However, if you need to secure access to modern and cloud-native databases, Kubernetes clusters, cloud CLIs, switches, routers, or internal web applications, there are other options to consider.

Alternatives to Okta Advanced Server Access

Okta’s Advanced Server Access (ScaleFT) is a tool allowing organizations to secure access to SSH and RDP servers via a centralized authentication method. However, if you need to secure access to databases, Kubernetes clusters, the cloud CLIs, switches, routers, or internal web applications, there are other options to consider.

Alternatives to HashiCorp Vault

HashiCorp Vault is a powerful secrets management tool that is well suited to automating the creation, distribution, and destruction of secrets. However, if your goal is to secure access to sensitive systems, a secrets store is not the only approach. In this blog post we’ll look at a few alternatives, with my take on the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

What Is Cloud PAM? Migration, Challenges & More

You’re moving to the cloud, but your PAM solution won’t migrate. Everyone needs access. It’s time to rethink your access management strategy.

Kubernetes RBAC Explained: Challenges, Approaches, and More

An explanation of role-based access control (RBAC) in Kubernetes, why it is hard to manage manually and practical strategies for simplifying RBAC in large-scale clusters.

BYOD Security Policy Guide: 6 Best Practices to Know

BYOD lets employees use their own smartphones, tablets, or laptops to access company resources and perform work-related tasks, allowing them to work from anywhere. This practice offers advantages like increased productivity and company savings on hardware costs. Employees are often more proficient with their own devices, which can mean a more comfortable work environment and result in higher job satisfaction.

Alternatives to Teleport

Gravitational Teleport is a powerful tool allowing organizations to secure access to SSH servers and Kubernetes clusters via a centralized authentication method. However, if you need to secure access to databases, Windows servers or internal web applications in addition to Linux servers/Kubernetes, there are other options to consider.

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