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Running head: IAM IN A FEDERATED CLOUD APPLICATION

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IAM IN A FEDERATED CLOUD APPLICATION 2

IAM in a federated cloud application

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IAM refers to the initials of identity and access management. The combination of some private and public cloud environment in a combined form in the provision of some varied services is what is known as a federated cloud application. IAM is used in the federated cloud application in ensuring that the users can manage and avail the cloud services (Labitzke, 2013). Generally, IAM is used in the performance of some essential functions like standardization, controlling techniques in accessing cloud services and also policy formation. Currently, many services are available in various geographical locations, while the used skills are globally spread. These features make it necessary to have IAM in use for a federated cloud application.

IAM must have a variety of usage, including authorization and authentication. The process of validating a genuine user is what is referred to as authentication. At the same time, authorization is a term about finding if the user is permitted to do or perform some specified actions (Scheidel, 2010). It is essential to note that with the use of IAM, an individual can either be denied or allowed access depending on the authorization and at the same time, can manage the rights to access. IAM has a mandate to allowing genuine and valid users right levels of access to the needed resources.

Organizations, companies or businesses that intend to expand to international level or globally via devices despite the geographical location IAM can serve them well. It is possible that these organizations use their own IAM or even involve third parties. Third parties can serve the organization with IAM for a fee as a provided service.

Examples of some companies that make use of IAM include IBM cloud services that make use of cloud IAM. Active directory business to consumer is a service used by Microsoft azure. AWS or amazon web services makes use of IAM in the form of Amazon IAM. Finally, the google computes cloud is known to make use of cloud identity. This is as per the book practical cloud security by Chris Dotson in the fourth chapter.

Users are enabled to access and perform resource management centrally by cloud federation by SSO (single sign-on) or even via multiple accounts. The most common services are offered free of charge while some are chargeable via premiums. Fees are usually as per the usage and offer varied services per the organization, industry or even usage. Archiving is possible through a usage-based solution. Industries automotive, finance and marketing depends on industry-based solutions (Mather, Kumaraswamy & Latif, S. (2009). IAM is known to cause various advantages to users like keeping track of the activities of users. This is achieved by the ability to capture and monitor the available logs. There is increased security of data which is also an advantage. Internally and externally, it reduces the chances of threats by risks reduction.it is also possible to assign privileges as an advantage. Despite the benefits, the IAM also has disadvantages including. Complement with new standards. There is a need to have more excellent management for a highly distributed application and even access revocation. It is also complicated too complacent with the current technologies.

References

Labitzke, S. (2013). Avoiding unintended flows of personally identifiable information: Enterprise identity management and online social networks. KIT Scientific Publishing.

Mather, T., Kumaraswamy, S., & Latif, S. (2009). Cloud security and privacy: An enterprise perspective on risks and compliance. O'Reilly Media.

Scheidel, J. (2010). Designing an IAM Framework with Oracle Identity and access management suite. McGraw Hill Professional.