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AWS IAM Identity Center

AWS IAM Identity Center

AWS IAM Identity Center centralizes identity and access management across AWS accounts and applications. It provides your workforce with single sign-on access to all your connected AWS accounts and cloud applications, simplifying access management while maintaining security.

Core Capabilities​

Single Sign-On (SSO): Enable users to access multiple AWS accounts and applications with a single set of credentials, reducing password fatigue and improving user experience.

Federated Identity Management: Connect to existing identity sources like Microsoft Active Directory, Azure AD, or other SAML 2.0 identity providers to leverage existing user directories.

Multi-Account Management: Centrally manage access across multiple AWS accounts in your organization, providing consistent permission management at scale.

Application Integration: Integrate with thousands of pre-configured cloud applications or use SAML 2.0 to connect custom applications.

How It Works​

IAM Identity Center acts as a bridge between your identity source and your AWS resources and applications. Users authenticate once with their existing credentials, and Identity Center provides them with temporary, limited-privilege credentials for accessing AWS resources based on their assigned permissions.

Use Cases​

Enterprise Workforce Management​

Provide employees with seamless access to multiple AWS accounts and cloud applications using their existing corporate credentials, eliminating the need to manage separate AWS credentials.

Multi-Account Organizations​

Simplify access management across multiple AWS accounts in AWS Organizations, allowing administrators to assign permissions at the organization level rather than managing access in each account individually.

Contractor and Partner Access​

Provide temporary or limited access to external users without creating permanent AWS credentials, maintaining security while enabling collaboration.

Compliance and Auditing​

Centralize access logging and maintain detailed audit trails of user access across all connected AWS accounts and applications for compliance reporting.

Connection to Other AWS Services​

AWS Organizations: Integrates seamlessly with AWS Organizations to provide centralized access management across all accounts in your organization.

AWS CloudTrail: All access events are logged in CloudTrail, providing comprehensive audit trails for compliance and security monitoring.

Amazon CloudWatch: Monitor sign-in events and access patterns using CloudWatch metrics and alarms for security alerting.

AWS Config: Track configuration changes to Identity Center settings and permissions for compliance and change management.

Microsoft Active Directory: Connect directly to on-premises Active Directory or AWS Managed Microsoft AD for seamless identity federation.

External Identity Providers: Integrate with Azure AD, Okta, PingIdentity, and other SAML 2.0-compatible identity providers.

Key Features​

Permission Sets: Define collections of policies that determine what users can do in AWS accounts, providing reusable permission templates.

Automatic Provisioning: Automatically create and manage users and groups based on information from your external identity source.

Session Duration Control: Configure how long users can stay signed in before they need to re-authenticate.

Trusted Relationships: Establish secure trust relationships between Identity Center and your identity sources without sharing credentials.

Benefits​

Simplified User Experience: Users sign in once and gain access to all authorized AWS accounts and applications without additional authentication.

Reduced Administrative Overhead: Centrally manage permissions across multiple AWS accounts and applications, reducing the complexity of access management.

Enhanced Security: Eliminate the need for long-term AWS credentials and provide temporary, just-in-time access with automatic session expiration.

Improved Compliance: Maintain centralized audit logs and enforce consistent access policies across your organization for better compliance posture.

Cost Optimization: No additional charges for IAM Identity Center, making it cost-effective to implement enterprise-grade identity management.

AWS IAM Identity Center provides a comprehensive solution for workforce identity management, enabling organizations to scale their AWS usage while maintaining security and simplifying the user experience across multiple accounts and applications.