Collaboration: Identity and Access Management

University of Washington

Collaboration: Identity and

Access Management

Lori StevensUniversity of Washington

16-17 October 2007

University of Washington

University of Washington

What is IAM?

• Critical IT infrastructure• Intersection of what NW engineers don’t

want to do *with* what app developers don’t want to do

• Combines technologies, business processes, governance, and policies to:– Manage digital identities– Specify how ids access resources

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Terminology• Authentication: says who you are

• Authorization: says what you can do

• Credentials: what you provide as ID

• Federation: collection of orgs that agree to operate under a certain rule-set

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Terminology• Identification: Process by which info about

a person is used to provide some LOA

• Level of Assurance (LOA)- Degree of certainty that someone is who they say they are– Low is OK for some things– For patient information (PHI), need high

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What drives the need?• Collaboration• Research and education, governments,

global health, …• Administrative applications• Growing complexity and the need to

simplify• Risk mitigation

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IAM-supported Collaboration

• Wiki, blog, email, calendar, IM• Document sharing/editing• Phone/videoconference• Data sharing• More about outreach, ease of access,

enablement

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Why is IAM necessary?

• To ensure the intended people access intended services

• Organizations have to manage users/ids efficiently and accurately– While enabling them to get their work done

• Digital IDs are taking on an increasingly important role for how we collaborate and share networked resources

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Identity Management Trends

• Pervasive in business processes

• Inserting NetIDs as early as possible– e.g. NetIDs for student applicants, contractors, etc.– Identities/NetIDs useful for life, e.g. alumni, retirees

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Sources of Information

• Human Resource db

• Research/grants db

• Student db

• Other dbs provide info about affiliations

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Person Registry

• Is knowing someone is a student enough?

• Is this person an employee and a student?

• Is this person affiliated with the institution?

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Federated Authentication

• Scholarship is global

• Less allegiance to institution, more to research

• Worldwide peers, now the norm

• Access to partners is now:– Simple and more flexible– More secure

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What is Shibboleth?

• Standards-based (SAML) Web SSO pkg

• Open Source

• Uses local IdM system to get to campus and other institution’s apps

• Protects user’s privacy and inst’s data

• Plays well with others, helps svc partners

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Federations

• Usually HE but doesn’t need to be limited

• Mostly Shib-based, not all though

• Use cases: – content access– collaboration support– wireless roaming

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Identity Lifecycle Management

• Managing users

• One NetID per person

• Credentials

• Provisioning

• Enabling self-service

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Managing Identity

• Provision accounts• Associate accounts with identities/people• Groups are created and managed• Accounts are given privileges• Credentials are issued• Authn, Authz, and Federation happen

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Group and Access Management• Several sources determine where a

person fits• A person belongs to several groups• One person often has several affiliations• Access can be based on:

– Affiliation– Group membership– Roles– Privileges

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Access Management

• Authentication: – Single sign-on, fewer sign-ons– LOA, # of credentials

• Federation and trust• Authorization:

– access control, role-based, federation

• Security auditing

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Enterprise IAM Infrastructure

• Enterprise user database– Person registry, directory driven from large business

sources, e.g. staff, student, affiliates

• Enterprise group management– Driven from business sources, e.g. courses,

departments, ad-hoc

• Enterprise privilege management– Delegated, role/function/affiliation-based

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Consolidation supports Collaboration

• Provides a centrally-coordinated service– Allows for distributed management of content– No need to manage multiple instances– Single place for auditing and reporting– Eases mgmt of security issues for apps– One set of tools and data for apps

• The stuff of academic life and often inter-institutional

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Challenges with Centralizing• Governance, mgmt of data

• Defining rules, delegation

• Compliance and regulations

• Consensus and support for central svcs

• Responsibility and accountability

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Policy and Governance Questions• Who is responsible for IDM?• What collaboration scenarios are

important to Research and Education?• Who will approve policies?• Who is part of the federation?• Who decides and develops policies?• Who owns the source data?

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Technical Challenges• Delivering information to apps• Mobility, portability

– anywhere, anyhow, anytime computing

• Interface consistency cross-location• Diversity of apps and platforms• Advanced app requirements• Interoperability

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IAM Benefits• Supports collaboration• Enables global federated authentication• Simplifies and secures• Reduces help desk load• Enables

– Shared management– Operating efficiencies

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Advancing IAM Efforts• Fostering technical standards• Aggregating and disseminating technical

design and implementation strategies• Fostering opportunities for others to

deploy products• Integrating efforts with specific scientific

and research communities

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Resources

• http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-emc2/• middleware.internet2.org• http://middleware.internet2.edu/MACE/• www.nmi-edit.org/roadmap/draft-authn-

roadmap-03/

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Questions?