Identity management (or ID Management) is the enterprise security networking process for identification, authentication, and authorization of individuals or groups. This grant permission to end users to access the system, application, or network by linking up the user rights and restrictions with the established identities. It is possible to refer the software processes via managed identities, which require operating organization machines.
More About Identity Management in Cloud Computing
ID management involves authentication and identification process to check whether one is permitted to have the access or not. It works hand-in-hand with all the identity accessing management machines. Here, all the focus is on authentication of the entity whereas access management is purposed for authorization. In cloud computing solution, it is the responsibility of identity management to decide whether to allow persons for account access or not. For instance, an individual might have authority to operate the system but, might be restricted from accessing some files or folders.
The major goal of Identity management concepts is to ensure that only the authentic person will have access to the particular data. It will be mandatory to prove the identity again and again whenever one tries to access confidential items. The ID management offers following main functionality:
- Control over the user provisioning
- Adding new users like employees
- Assigning permission for data access
- Removal of users who is no more authentic
The governance rules and process guidelines give instruction to set roles and the user access rights to be assigned in the enterprise environment. This is an important aspect of identity management where things are to be assigned in a correct manner. Actually, the truth is that the identity management is principle to manage role-based access management patterns.
Importance of Identity Management
The identity management is considered as the core part of enterprise security because it is associated with security as well as productivity of the organization. In several firms, end users are assigned with accessing privileges rather than anything else. It will be possible for attackers or crackers to acquire network and data of the firm. Now, enterprises are capable of safeguarding their corporate assets from cyber threats like Ransomware, phishing, hacking, and other malware attacks.
The overall system of Identity management deploys the following technologies:
- SSO: Decreases total number of passwords by incorporating the federated-identity approach using single cycle account login
- Access Control: Integrated with enforceable security policies as well as multifactor authentication to lower down the data breach risks
Challenges While Implementing Identity Management
The firm must be having capabilities to plan and collaborate different business ideas for successful identity management implementation. Identity Management in cloud computing environment is of great effect if the strategies are decided with clear objectives, predefined business processes, and buy-in from the stakeholders. When IT security, human resources, and other technical departments get involved in implementation procedure, Identity management works in best way.
ID management systems enable administrators to manage several users in real-time under different conditions and computing environments. It is infeasible to manually adjust the accessing privileges and access controls for thousands or hundreds of users. People want to know the difference eagerly between cloud computing vs traditional IT infrastructure. Additionally, the authentication process should be easy for end users while performing and simple for IT to secure and deploy.
There are several challenges that are faced while implementing the identity management concepts but, one such is password management. The functionality of creating, deleting, and updating passwords will be having real cost that enterprises will prefer to eliminate. Accordingly, the IT professions must investigate approaches that will be reducing the impact of password issues in the firm. The software that manages identity management must be running a program that is dedicated to the networking appliances or the server. The very basic activity in identity management program is defining policies because this involves deep understanding of technical factors. All these things also depend on the accurate management console functionality, which involves policy reporting, policy definition, alerts, warning alarms, etc. When a user forcibly tries to access a resource, which is not assigned with access permission upon it; tool will start giving a warning message through which administrator will come to know that something wrong is going on.
Conclusion
Identity Management in cloud computing could be important to enhance employees and users experience. Basically, it is designed to reduce the impact of identity chaos where multiple sets of end users IDs and passwords are saved. It is important to overcome all the challenges faced while implementing ID management and hence, grow business in a secure manner.
