Cloud Computing Identity as a Service

Cloud Computing Identity as a Service (IDaaS)

Employees in a company tend to login into the device and execute different tasks. This can be based on local server or cloud-based applications. Then there are the challenges an employee can face:

• Know various combinations of login credentials to access multiple servers.
• If an employee leaves the company , making sure that each user's account is disabled is necessary. This raises the workload on the IT workers.

A modern technique emerged to solve above-mentioned issues, known as Identity-as – a-Service (IDaaS).

IDaaS provides Identification Knowledge management as a digital entity. You may use your identity during electronic transactions.

Identity

Identity relates to set of features that make something familiar. Both objects can have the same properties so they can not have the same identities. It assigns an unique identity by an unique identification attribute.

Several identification systems are implemented to validate services such as validating web sites, transactions, participants in transactions, clients, etc. The Identity-as-a-Service may include:

• Directory services
• Federated services
• Registration
• Authentication services
• Risk and event monitoring
• Single sign-on services
• Identity and profile management

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Companies often use Single Sign-On applications to solve the problem by utilizing various username and password combinations across different servers, enabling the user to login only once and control access to all systems.

SSO requires a common server to verify, managing several accesses to other systems.

SSO Working

Explain the workings of Single Sign-On the following steps:

• User logs to system security utilizing a username and password.
• The authentication service returns the ticket to the user.
• User sends the ticket to server intranet.
• Intranet server transfers the ticket to server for authentication.
• Authentication server sends the authentication keys for that server back to the server intranet.

If an employee exits the company, then disabling the authentication server user account would prohibit the user's access to all the applications.

Federated Identity Management (FIDM)

The FIDM defines the technologies and protocols that enable a user to package security credentials through security domains. It allows use of Security Markup Language (SAML) to assemble security credentials for an user

OpenID

It gives users the ability to log into several single account websites. Google, and Yahoo! Any of the businesses that support OpenID are Flickr, MySpace, WordPress.com.

Benefits

• Increased conversation rates on site
• Access to content with a greater user profile
• Few concerns regarding lost password
• Simple integration of content inside social networking sites