This large US federal agency chose Cayosoft to modernize their identity systems with performance and resiliency they could trust.
Challenge
Solution
Organization Profile:
The IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, responsible for administering the Internal Revenue Code. It processes over 260 million tax returns annually, collects over $4 trillion in tax revenue, and serves individual taxpayers and business entities.
The Trigger: An internal audit questioned the value of continuing with legacy tools. Costs were rising, while the tools lagged on security, scalability, efficiency, and modernization, forcing the agency to reconsider its path forward.
The federal government changed. It initiated tighter scrutiny of operational efficiency and waste. For nearly 20 years, the IRS relied on Quest Software’s legacy tools, but as its hybrid identity environment grew, cracks began to show. This moment forced the IRS team to reevaluate its legacy dependency.
What they found confirmed their suspicions:
“At first, I was offended—they wanted me to justify our legacy tools. But once I looked around, I realized we were stuck in the past. Cayosoft is the modern solution that we can grow with.”
— IRS Systems Architect
Key Deployment Benefits:
“The migration was easier than expected. Cayosoft service was responsive, transparent, and the product just worked—no consultants, no drawn‑out rollout.”
— IRS Systems Architect
Improved Operational Efficiency
The switch to Cayosoft led to a dramatic simplification of identity lifecycle management.
Enhanced Security and Compliance
With Zero Trust delegation, RBAC enforcement, and built-in audit trails, Cayosoft significantly raised the security baseline.
Faster User Onboarding and User Deprovisioning
The IRS streamlined provisioning and license assignment across both on-prem and cloud environments using HR-driven automation and dynamic role‑based logic.
Cost Reduction and Simplified Licensing
Cayosoft replaced multiple legacy tools with one platform, eliminating overlapping software, sync engines, and hidden licensing fees.
The IRS’s move to Cayosoft signals a broader federal shift—from outdated, overpriced legacy tools to modern, hybrid-native platforms for today’s challenges.
Key Takeaways:
“This was about more than replacing a vendor. I was about evolving our identity infrastructure to meet the next decade’s challenges. Cayosoft isn’t just a tool—it’s a platform we can build on.”
— IRS Systems Architect
| Feature | Cayosoft | Legacy |
|---|---|---|
| Hybrid Microsoft Management | Built from the ground up | Bolt-on hybrid support |
| Automation | Declarative, script‑free | PowerShell-heavy |
| Security & Delegation | Zero Trust, vOUs | Complex AD permissions |
| Instant Recovery | Forest-wide recovery in minutes | Manual, batch recovery |
| Customer Support | Direct, transparent, fast | Known delays, upsells |
| Licensing | Transparent, all‑in‑one | Fragmented, audit‑prone |
The IRS chose Cayosoft because it did what Quest couldn’t: simplify, secure, and modernize a mission-critical environment. It delivered more value, less complexity, and proper alignment—without the baggage.
If the IRS can break free from 20 years of legacy lock-in, any agency can.
After nearly two decades of reliance on Quest Software, the IRS faced growing operational complexity, high maintenance costs, and increasing security risks. An internal vendor management audit triggered a competitive review. The IRS selected Cayosoft for its modern, hybrid-native architecture, unmatched support for Active Directory (AD), Entra ID, and Microsoft 365, as well as the ability to deliver faster Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) than legacy tools.
The IRS dealt with frequent outages, rising licensing costs, brittle PowerShell scripting, overlapping synchronization layers, and slow vendor support. Quest’s stagnation in innovation meant the agency could no longer keep up with hybrid IT requirements.
The IRS employs ~80,000 people and supports thousands of mission-critical applications across a multi-forest Active Directory environment integrated with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft 365.
With Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, the IRS can restore its Active Directory forest in under an hour, compared to the 8–48 hours typical with legacy tools. Continuous backup and immutable storage reduced RPO windows from hours or days to just minutes.
No. Cayosoft is agentless, eliminating privileged services on DCs, which simplifies deployment, reduces attack surface, and avoids dependency chains.
Cayosoft enforces Zero Trust with role-based delegation (RBAC and vOUs), delivers immutable audit trails, integrates directly with SIEM/SOAR tools, and meets compliance requirements for FISMA, NIST, SOX, and IRS Publication 1075.
All backups are AES-256 encrypted, immutable, and malware-scanned daily. Clean, tamper-evident backups ensure the IRS can restore AD without reintroducing infected data.
The IRS reduced operational costs by 30%, eliminated reliance on consultants and redundant tools, accelerated user provisioning and deprovisioning, and improved employee productivity. Most importantly, they now have confidence that AD downtime won’t halt federal operations.
Cayosoft aligns with the IRS’s need for agility, compliance, and operational efficiency. By consolidating multiple tools into a unified Manage–Monitor–Recover platform, the IRS built a future-ready identity foundation that reduces risk and supports Zero Trust initiatives.
Don’t accept stagnation. Legacy vendors may be “good enough,” but they create hidden costs and risks. Agencies must prioritize innovation, adopt platforms that evolve with hybrid IT, and treat identity resilience as central to both security and business continuity.
When tasked with justifying the continued use of Quest, IRS leaders turned to platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity to identify competitors, research features, and validate analyst reports. Both tools helped them quickly compare vendors and understand where innovation was happening in hybrid identity.
Together, they help IT leaders and business executives cut through marketing claims, validate performance benchmarks, and ensure procurement decisions align with mission-critical requirements. For agencies like the IRS, this hybrid approach accelerated evaluation and reduced risk in vendor selection.