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What does “accessible” mean for each critical application?
An app can remain open in a browser while new sign-ins are failing. A user may have a valid session, but lose access when it expires, a policy requires interactive authentication, or the app requests a fresh token. Meanwhile, an administrator might still be able to reach the identity tenant without being able to restore workforce access to every connected app.
Start with an application register that distinguishes continued use of an existing session from the ability to start a new session during an IdP outage. Set an outage tolerance and recovery objective for each service according to its business impact; do not assume that the IdP status page or a successful emergency-admin sign-in proves that users can reach their applications.
- Ownership: Name the business owner, technical owner, and incident decision-maker for each app.
- Sign-in design: Record the IdP, protocol, and exact flow—for example, SAML IdP-initiated versus SP-initiated SSO, OIDC, or native OAuth.
- Session and policy behavior: Note session lifetime, sign-in frequency, interactive MFA requirements, and the events that can force a fresh sign-in.
- Continuity path: State whether an existing session may continue, whether a newly initiated sign-in can work, and which vendor-supported fallback applies.
- Recovery details: Identify who can invoke the fallback, where required credentials and runbooks are held, and how to return to normal authentication.
Keep the failure cases distinct: a federation host or network failure is not the same as an IdP service outage, a locked-out tenant administrator, or an app-side SSO failure. Each can require a different response.
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Can users keep working through an IdP outage?
Sometimes, but only if the app session remains valid or the app and identity provider have a supported backup-authentication path that fits the user’s sign-in conditions. A fallback for administrators does not automatically provide a way for employees to authenticate, and a backup feature for one integration does not imply that every app connected to the IdP is covered.
Check the exact integration, not just the app name
For Microsoft Entra, the Backup Authentication System covers selected patterns, including supported native OAuth clients, OIDC web apps that use only ID tokens, and supported SAML apps configured for IdP-initiated SSO. Microsoft says OIDC web apps that request access tokens and SAML apps using SP-initiated SSO are not currently supported by this backup system. The app’s name in a gallery is not proof that your organization’s specific configuration qualifies. Review the Microsoft Backup Authentication System documentation against the actual app registration and sign-in flow.
Verify the user and session conditions
Microsoft documents a prior-authentication requirement for this backup path: the same user must have successfully authenticated to the same app on the same device within the preceding three days (Microsoft, 2026). Interactive authentication must not be required. The documented conditions also include use in the user’s home tenant rather than B2B or B2C, no blocking policy that disables resilience defaults, and no revocation event—such as a credential change—since the last successful authentication.
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This relies on metadata from prior authentication and cannot freshly evaluate every policy or certificate-revocation state in the same way as normal authentication. Treat the three-day window as one condition of a specific Microsoft feature, not as a general guarantee that users can work for three days during any IdP outage. Confirm current eligibility and test the precise app, device, policy, and user scenario.
Decide how to handle apps without a suitable backup path
For an app that cannot use an existing session or a documented IdP backup path, ask the app vendor whether it supports a controlled alternative sign-in method and what that method can do during an SSO outage. If the organization adopts such a method, document who may enable or use it, how identities and access are controlled, and how normal SSO is restored. Do not assume that disabling SSO, using a local password, or creating a second identity provider is a safe or supported emergency procedure.
How should administrators preserve access to the identity tenant?
Keep emergency administrator access independent of the normal authentication dependency chain. In Microsoft Entra, Microsoft recommends creating two or more cloud-only emergency accounts (Microsoft Learn guidance last updated June 5, 2026), using non-federated *.onmicrosoft.com accounts rather than accounts synchronized from on-premises. Microsoft’s emergency-access guidance calls for phishing-resistant authentication, such as FIDO2 passkeys or certificate-based authentication, with a method independent of normal administrators’ methods.
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- Keep credentials and authentication methods in a secure location authorized responders can reach without the affected IdP or an SSO-dependent password vault. Do not tie the only usable factor to one employee’s personal phone.
- Use a designated secure workstation and assign the emergency Global Administrator role permanently active, as Microsoft’s guidance specifies.
- Exclude the emergency accounts from Conditional Access controls that could prevent their sign-in, while monitoring and alerting on their use.
- Keep emergency access for cloud services distinct from emergency access for on-premises systems; neither should depend on the other.
Microsoft says to validate emergency accounts at least every 90 days (Microsoft, 2026). A meaningful exercise checks more than whether a password works: confirm that authorized custodians can retrieve the factor, sign in, complete the administrative task needed for recovery, and receive the expected alerts. Keep a short runbook covering authorization, credential retrieval, permitted actions, monitoring, and credential rotation after use or personnel changes.
FIDO2 security keys are one possible physical authentication method, but compatibility depends on the tenant, device, and organizational enrollment requirements. Microsoft’s guidance does not establish that a particular retail model works in every environment.
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Provider-level disaster recovery may address specific infrastructure failures, but it is not a universal remedy for every cause of lost access. Check the applicable service documentation, contract, region or cell configuration, recovery objective, administration access, product eligibility, and exclusions for your organization.
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Okta’s current Identity Engine documentation describes these regional recovery timings:
| Okta capability | Documented timing and scope | Important limits |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Disaster Recovery | Failover usually takes one hour after Okta identifies the outage for a qualifying regional infrastructure failure (Okta documentation accessed October 7, 2026). | After failover, admins have read-only Admin Console access and users can access apps, but users cannot reset passwords. The timing is not a customer-specific commitment unless confirmed for the applicable service and contract. |
| Enhanced Disaster Recovery | Failover is documented within five minutes for affected Production organizations (Okta documentation accessed October 7, 2026). | Named product exclusions apply; preview organizations are excluded. Verify current eligibility and contract terms. |
Okta says these capabilities do not cover third-party or vendor-connection issues, attacks, malicious data changes, or configuration errors; Enhanced Disaster Recovery also has named product exclusions. Its Disaster Recovery Admin app does not support external IdP authentication: admins need locally sourced Okta credentials and a supported MFA factor authenticated directly in the recovery environment. See Okta’s disaster-recovery documentation and confirm its current scope with Okta before relying on it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How do you keep recovery tools usable during the incident?
Store known-good identity configuration exports, operational runbooks, and recovery credentials somewhere responders can reach without the affected tenant. Preserve sign-in and audit logs in an appropriately independent destination, and establish how to contact provider support if the administration portal is unavailable. Microsoft’s tenant-recoverability guidance warns about circular dependencies—for example, a recovery repository that requires access to the same tenant that is inaccessible.
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Distinguish a broad provider service outage from customer-tenant corruption or lockout. The recovery path, evidence available to responders, and steps required to restore access can differ. Avoid adding a secondary IdP or self-managed standby as if it were a simple switch: extra identity infrastructure brings its own configuration, synchronization, credential, and operational dependencies, all of which need independent access and regular failover exercises.
What should an outage exercise test?
Exercise the full path from detection through user access and return to normal authentication. Include these scenarios in the plan:
- Federation host or network failure: Confirm whether cloud authentication remains available and whether the affected apps have a documented alternative.
- Central IdP service or regional outage: Check which existing sessions continue, which supported backup paths are eligible, and what provider recovery capabilities apply.
- Expired or revoked session, or a policy requiring fresh interactive authentication: Test what happens when a user cannot rely on an existing session or does not meet a backup-authentication condition.
- Administrator lockout from a Conditional Access or tenant configuration error: Use the independent emergency-admin path and confirm that responders can perform the necessary recovery action.
- Critical app outage or broken IdP connection: Determine whether the fault is in the application, its SSO integration, or the identity service before invoking a provider-level recovery process.
Record which users and tasks succeeded, which capabilities were read-only, who contacted the vendor, where responders obtained credentials and recovery artifacts, and how the organization restored its normal sign-in configuration. Repeat the relevant exercises after changes to federation, Conditional Access, MFA, sign-in frequency, app SSO, or recovery tooling.
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