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

DevOps, Security, Authentication, Access, Privileged Access Management, Zero Trust, Productivity, Integrations, Databases, Compliance, NIST, HIPAA, Product, AWS

Latest blog posts from John

Top 7 Secrets Management Tools for 2025 and Beyond

Explore the top 7 secrets management tools, including StrongDM, HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and Doppler. Discover secure, Zero Trust solutions that reduce secret sprawl, automate credential rotation, enforce least privilege, and integrate seamlessly with DevOps workflows.

15 Best Kubernetes Management Tools for Cluster Control in 2025

Explore the best Kubernetes management tools, including StrongDM, Lens, Rancher, and Argo CD. Discover powerful solutions for cluster control, secure access, automation, observability, and cost optimization to streamline your Kubernetes infrastructure.

SAML vs. SSO: What's the Difference & How They Work Together

Single sign-on (SSO) gives users one login to access everything. SAML is one of the key protocols that makes that possible—passing identity data securely between identity providers and service providers. But while all SAML implementations are part of SSO, not all SSO solutions rely on SAML. Understanding how SAML fits into your authentication stack helps you choose the right tools for modern access control. This guide breaks down how SAML works, how it powers SSO, and how you can manage

User Access Reviews: Best Practices & Process Checklist for 2025

As teams grow and roles shift, it’s easy for permissions to get out of sync. That’s where user access reviews come in—they ensure every employee, vendor, or service account has exactly the access they need, and nothing more.Regular reviews reduce risk, prevent privilege creep, and help meet compliance requirements like SOX, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. But manual reviews? They’re slow, messy, and often incomplete.This guide breaks down the essentials of access reviews—what they are, why they matter,

What Is Secrets Management? Best Practices for 2025

Secrets management is the practice of securely storing, accessing, and controlling digital authentication credentials such as passwords, API keys, certificates, and tokens used by applications and systems. It ensures that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access, while supporting automation, compliance, and security across modern infrastructure.

Financial Security in the Cloud: Why IAM & PAM Aren’t Enough

Legacy security models can’t protect modern financial systems. Continuous Authorization ensures real-time, risk-based access control for true Zero Trust. Learn how to secure your cloud and hybrid environments today.

Top 9 Cloud Databases for 2025 (Free & Paid)

This guide breaks down the top cloud database solutions reshaping how organizations store, manage, and scale data. From relational databases to NoSQL options, we’ll cover what matters most when choosing the right solution for your needs. By the end, you’ll understand how modern cloud databases drive scalability and performance—and which one is the best fit for your organization.

NIST Password Guidelines: 2025 Updates & Best Practices

The latest updates in NIST Special Publication shift focus from complexity to usability. Key changes include: 1. Prioritizing password length over complexity. 2. Mandating compromised credential screening. 3. Encouraging passwordless authentication methods. 4. Eliminating forced password resets unless compromise is suspected.

15 Cybersecurity Regulations for Financial Services in 2025

In this guide, we’ll cover the 15 most important cybersecurity regulations for financial services providers. We’ll show exactly which ones—from GDPR and PCI DSS to MAS TRM, CBEST, and others—apply to your organization, and explain, in plain in English, what they are, how they impact your business, and how you can initiate a path for compliance.

HIPAA Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Requirements in 2025

The HIPAA Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) requirement is a security measure that requires users to verify their identity using at least two different factors—such as something they know (a password), something they have (a smartphone or token), or something they are (a fingerprint)—to access systems containing electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). This additional layer of security is designed to protect sensitive healthcare data from unauthorized access, even if one credential is

How to Streamline PSD2 Compliance with StrongDM

In this post, we’ll explore what PSD2 compliance challenges businesses face, and how StrongDM simplifies secure access to help organizations confidently meet PSD2 requirements.

13 StrongDM Use Cases with Real Customer Case Studies

Managing access to critical infrastructure is a challenge for many organizations. Legacy tools often struggle to keep up, creating inefficiencies, security gaps, and frustration. StrongDM offers a modern solution that simplifies access management, strengthens security, and improves workflows. In this post, we’ll explore 13 real-world examples of how StrongDM helps teams solve access challenges and achieve their goals.

What Is Network Level Authentication (NLA)? (How It Works)

Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a security feature of Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) that requires users to authenticate before establishing a remote session. By enforcing this pre-authentication step, NLA reduces the risk of unauthorized access, conserves server resources, and protects against attacks like credential interception and denial of service. While effective in securing RDP sessions, NLA is limited to a single protocol, lacks flexibility, and can add complexity in

How to Automate Continuous Compliance in AWS with StrongDM

Enterprises seek ways to effectively address the needs of dynamic, always-evolving cloud infrastructures, and StrongDM has developed a platform that is designed with built-in capabilities to support continuous compliance in AWS environments.

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