AWS IAM Identity Center: Multi-Payer Limitations and Solutions

introduction

In a cloud environment, identity and access management is a key element linked to enterprise security and operational efficiency. Especially for businesses using multiple AWS accounts and various SaaS, single sign-on (SSO) has become an option rather than an option. However, AWS's own solution, IAM Identity Center, shows proposed in multi-page environments.

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In this article, I'll define the problems of AWS IAM Identity Center, explain the problems that problems in multi-page environments, and present how Megazone POPs can solve this problem along with real-world examples.

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What is AWS IAM Identity Center

AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS SSO) is a managed identity management service provided by AWS that provides single sign-on (SSO) access to multiple AWS accounts and applications. This service works in managing with AWS Organizations and organizations integrated access management for multiple AWS accounts within an organization.

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Why is the AWS IAM Identity Center important

The threats of identity management in a cloud environment cannot be overstated. According to Gartner, it is likely that by 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will result from poor customer identity and access management.

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Many businesses still manage accounts by hand using spreadsheets. This is a security practice that affects humans, and is bound to be dangerous to human error and security threats. There is a risk that access keys, secret keys, passwords, written in spreadsheets will be leaked at any time, and there is no control system to properly manage them.

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Incurred, an organization's security team should monitor the entire system and have a policy in place to alert the team when access or secret information is detected in spreadsheets or documents. These security practices must be included as part of an enterprise's overall security policy and should be a key area of responsibility for security teams.

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The AWS IAM Identity Center is important for the following reasons:

1. Enhanced security: Consistent identity management consistent application of security policies.
2. Operational efficiency: You can manage access rights to multiple accounts in one place.
3. Improved user experience: Users only need to perform a single login for multiple accounts and services.

However, the AWS IAM Identity Center has important concerns: The point is that it doesn't support multi-page environments.

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Multi-page discussion of AWS IAM Identity Center

AWS organizations have multiple AWS accounts under a single payer (billing) account. Because AWS IAM Identity Center only works with this Organization unit, enterprises that use multiple Organizations (multi-page) experience the following issues:

1. Integrated authentication not available: AWS accounts considered to different organizations cannot be managed by a single IAM Identity Center.
2. Redundancy management required: Each organization must set up and manage a separate IAM identity center.
3. Consistent Policies: Each organization must maintain different policies and settings, making it necessary to maintain consistency.

Let's understand it with the example below:

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Single Organizations Environment (AWS IAM Identity Center possible):

AWS Organizations (Org 1)
├── AWS Account A
├── AWS Account B
└── AWS Account C
    → ✅ AWS IAM Identity Center로 모든 계정 통합 관리 가능

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Multi-page environments (AWS IAM Identity Center environments):

AWS Organizations (Org 1)    AWS Organizations (Org 2)
├── AWS Account A            ├── AWS Account X
├── AWS Account B            └── AWS Account Y
└── AWS Account C
    → ❌ 모든 계정을 하나의 AWS IAM Identity Center로 관리 불가
    → ❌ 각 Organizations마다 별도 IAM Identity Center 필요

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Megazone Pops' IAM and SMP services

Megazone Pops is an integrated solution that goes beyond simple identity management. The core Competitive Advantage of POPs is that they provide IAM (Identity and Access Management) and SMP (Service Management Portal) together.

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POPs IAM: Provides unified identity and access management for multiple cloud environments across the boundaries of AWS organizations.

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Furious, POPs SMP: It goes beyond simple identity management and provides a service management portal with additional features such as:

• Integrated management and user assignment for each app
• Authorization and fine-grained access control
• SSO support for various SaaS applications
• Fine-grained permission management (RBAC) for AWS accounts and services
• Integrated management of MFA functions

This combination of IAM and SMP allows Megazone POPs to go beyond a simple identity provider (IDP) and establish partnerships as a comprehensive cloud service management platform.

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Real examples of Megazone Pops

Company A was a company with about 200 people and was using various SaaS and AWS services. The company wanted to integrate SSO for an efficient use of AWS and SaaS services; in particular, the use of AWS Client VPN and SSO integration were important requirements.

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At first, I wanted to manage my AWS account through Google SAML integration, but I thought that a separate authentication solution was needed in a multi-page environment. Incurred, it was considered to be Megazone Pops.

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Services used by Company A:

• 6 SaaS including Asana, Notion, Google Workspace, Flex, and Jetbrains
• Multiple AWS accounts
• AWS Client VPN
• Kubernetes

By participating Megazone POPs, Company A was able to reap the following benefits:

1. Integrated authentication for multiple AWS Organizations accounts
2. Delivering SSO for various SaaS services
3. Seamless integration with AWS Client VPN
4. Intact user and rights management

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Megazone Pops Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips for making effective use of Megazone POPs:

1. establish an integrated certification plan: List all services and applications and establish a unified authentication plan.
2. Enable MFA: Be sure to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance security.
3. Infringency rights policies: Design user groups and permission policies according to the principle of least privilege. The AWS Console supports RBAC, and Pops inherits that attitude.
4. Regular access rights reviews: Review user access rights on a quarterly basis and remove certain permissions.
5. External system integration test: Conduct comprehensive integration tests with VPNs, on-premise systems, etc.
6. Exclusively SMP features: Make the most of the detailed access rights settings and management for each application through Megazone Pops' SMP function.
7. Involving a security monitoring system: To prevent secret keys and access keys from being recorded in spreadsheets or documents, establish a system for security teams to monitor and send alarms in case of incidents.

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Finishing

AWS IAM Identity Center is a powerful SSO solution within a single AWS organization, but its components are clear in multi-page environments. For businesses using multiple organizations, an external IDP solution such as Megazone Pops is an essential choice for integrated authentication in cloud environments.

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Megazone Pops won't be an AWS account but also various SaaS and on-premise systems to enable true single sign-on.

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Furthering, the SMP of Megazone POPs goes beyond user access rights management and provides a service management portal, furthering enterprise IT managers to centrally manage all cloud services and applications. This integrated management capability is important in multi-phased environments and complex management complexity.

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As shown in Company A's case, arguing the right SSO solution can improve an enterprise's security and operational efficiency, and Megazone POPs, which provides both IAM and SMP, fully meets these needs.

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Does your business use a multi-payment AWS environment or a variety of cloud services? Combining the Confidential of Integrated Authentication and Capture Both Security and Convenience with Megazone POPs. Get a free trial with a Megazone Cloud Expert today to find the best SSO solution.

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