Identity Access Management (IAM)

IAM

It allows you to manage users and their levels of access to the AWS resources. Here are some key points to remember when thinking about IAM:

1. IAM is universal, it is not specific to a region or AZ
2. Centralized control to the AWS account
3. Shared Access to your AWS account
4. Granular Permissions
5. Identity federation (like Active Directory)
6. MFA – Multifactor Authentication – Two factor Auth
7. Temporary access for users
8. Allows you to set up your own password rotation policy
9. Integrates with many different AWS services and supports PCI DSS compliance

IAM entities:

In IAM there are four types of entities:

1. Users – End-users
2. Groups – A collection of users under one set of permissions.