Identity Fabric: The future of Identity and access management

An Identity Fabric is a modern approach to Identity and Access Management (IAM) that serves as a centralized framework to seamlessly manage and protect any human or machine user across diverse and complex hybrid and multicloud environments.
 

• Unified access and centralized data management: Identity fabric provides a single, streamlined point of access and management for all user identities across multiple systems, simplifying user experience and enhancing security
   
• Fluid integration across platforms: The Identity fabric framework excels in integrating diverse Identity management tools, ensuring smooth interoperability with emerging technologies like IoT and edge computing
   
• Adaptive and predictive security: An Identity fabric employs AI-driven analytics for real-time threat detection and adaptive access controls, ensuring a balance between robust security and user privacy
   
• Compliance and versatility: The Identity fabric architecture ensures compliance with various regulations and is versatile enough to function across different cloud and on-premises environments, making it scalable for growing organizational needs

What is Identity fabric?

As a progression of Identity access management, an Identity fabric is an expanded approach to Identity-first security. While IAM ensures that both human and machine users are provided with the right access to the right resources at the right time for the right reasons, an Identity Fabric supports greater consistency to keep access, as it happens, within its intended bounds. 

Integrating different Identity services, including authentication, authorization, and administration, an Identity fabric helps foster a seamless, flexible, and scalable infrastructure. Unlike traditional systems, it’s designed to adapt to the ever-changing terrain of digital interactions, providing a more holistic and agile approach to Identity management. 

An organization’s Identity fabric can improve user experience, enhance security, and help better ensure regulatory compliance. Its composable IAM architecture can integrate multiple technologies from different vendors across hybrid and multicloud environments and support a range of IAM use cases.

How Identity fabric has evolved

The shift from fragmented Identity systems to integrated solutions

Digital Identity management has transformed dramatically from basic username-password systems to sophisticated multi-factor authentication processes. Traditional systems, often rigid and prone to security risks, fall short of tackling the complexities of contemporary digital interactions. With its robust and adaptable architecture, Identity fabric addresses these gaps, marking a significant evolution in digital Identity strategies.

A unified approach to IAM

An Identity Fabric provides a comprehensive and coherent Identity and access management platform that can keep pace with the evolving digital landscape, support new technologies like IoT and mobile devices, and align with business objectives while maintaining security and compliance. 

Integral components include:

Analytics and intelligence: Advanced analytics to monitor and analyze Identity data that can improve decision-making and identify potential security threats

Automation: By automating Identity lifecycle management processes, it reduces manual efforts and the potential for errors

Centralization: Identity management across numerous platforms and applications in hybrid and multi-cloud environments

Compliance: It helps organizations meet various regulatory compliance requirements by ensuring that Identity management practices are consistent and auditable

Consistency: Identity fabric provides consistent access controls and policies across all digital assets to simplify administration and improve overall security posture

Extensibility: Designed to be extendable, it allows for the integration of future technologies and Identity services without requiring an overhaul of the existing infrastructure

Flexibility: Product agnostic, it supports a variety of Identity types (like employees, customers, and devices) and authentication methods, making it adaptable to diverse business needs

Interoperability: Using standard protocols and interfaces, an Identity fabric ensures that different Identity systems can communicate and work together seamlessly

Scalability: Identity fabric can scale to handle an increasing number of users, devices, and services without compromising performance or security

User Experience: With a single Identity for each user across all systems, an Identity fabric enhances the user experience by providing secure frictionless access to resources with single sign-on capabilities

Key principles of an Identity fabric

The principles of an Identity fabric are centered on creating a seamless and secure user experience, reducing complexity, ensuring compliance, and enabling digital transformation by connecting people, processes, and technology through Identity. 

Ten fundamental elements of an Identity fabric include:

• Any human or machine
• Centralized control and decentralized enablement 
• Composed, orchestrated, and journey-oriented architecture
• Adaptive, continuous, risk-aware, and resilient security
• Pervasive standards
• Event-based integration connectivity 
• Continuous and automated change
• Prescriptive and remediating threat detection and response
• Privacy for everyone
• Continuous observability

Identity fabric in action

Unlike previous IAM infrastructure with a central Identity platform at its core, an Identity fabric is a scalable, independent Identity architecture taking the form of an Identity mesh surrounding an entire organization. This fabric is cloud-native, making it easier to scale, modify and upgrade. Because it‘s interoperable, it works with various standards across the Identity industry, allowing different departments or lines of business to leverage different standards. And it’s agile and extensible, so businesses can modify edge Identity gateways as they see fit to meet their unique needs.

An Identity fabric framework addresses a spectrum of needs in the cybersecurity landscape. Beyond managing user access, it facilitates the implementation of the CeDeSec (Centralized, Delegated, and Secured) pattern to extend control over various critical areas. This entails setting policies for resource access, managing confidential information like passwords and keys, and ensuring these controls are applied consistently across all parts of an organization’s multicloud environments or tenants.

Common use cases for an Identity fabric:

• Access control and authentication: Enhances security and user experience through SSO and MFA
• Compliance and governance: Assists in meeting legal and regulatory requirements by managing user access rights and audit trails
• Customer Identity and access management: Offers secure and user-friendly ways to manage online customer identities and access
• Identity analytics: Provides insights into user behavior and potential security threats by analyzing Identity data
• Integration with cloud services: Manages identities across both on-premises and cloud environments for secure access
• IoT device management: Ensures secure communication among IoT devices by managing their identities
• Unified Identity management: Streamlines user management across multiple systems and platforms, like HR systems, email, and internal apps
• Zero Trust security framework: Supports the Zero Trust model by requiring strict Identity verification for network access.

Enhancing cybersecurity with Identity fabric

Mitigate modern threats with advanced security features

In today’s digital cloudverse, safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII) and systems requires composable security features that strengthen Identity access infrastructure. Organizations can create a more dynamic and adaptive security environment by integrating Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) with an Identity fabric. 

Achieve Identity fabric immunity

By leveraging cutting-edge solutions like real-time threat detection and AI-powered predictive analytics, security and IT teams can preempt and respond quickly to potential breaches. As cyber threats grow more complex and ransomware and phishing attacks become increasingly commonplace, an Identity fabric helps protect systems against technical and human threats and vulnerabilities.

Stay compliant with evolving regulations

As organizations navigate the intricate web of regulations, an Identity fabric helps ensure compliance with stringent standards like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). It can fortify cybersecurity frameworks, mitigate modern cyber threats, and help uphold regulatory compliance.

Employ user-centric design for a fluid experience

An Identity fabric significantly streamlines the user experience in Identity and access management by offering single sign-on capabilities. This allows users to engage with multiple applications and services without the hassle of remembering numerous passwords. The system seamlessly integrates various IAM tools, creating a unified experience across different platforms. This results in a smoother interaction with digital services, as the Identity fabric removes the need to deal with different authentication processes.

Personalization vs. privacy

Upholding an enhanced privacy standard, an Identity fabric approach centralizes Identity management and ensures that personal information is shared only when necessary, adhering to strict access controls. This minimizes the risk of data exposure and reinforces the privacy of user information. With adaptive access controls, security measures can be tailored to the user's context, enhancing security and user experience without compromising privacy.

By employing advanced technologies like AI to address security threats preemptively, an Identity fabric helps protect against unauthorized access. This proactive approach to privacy, and a consistent security experience across all user interactions, establishes a trustworthy environment for both users and organizations.

Future trends and innovations in Identity fabric

Emerging technologies

The progression of the Identity fabric is in sync with advancements in technology and evolving security needs. Key trends include the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to enhance security measures and provide adaptive threat detection. 

According to Gartner^®, “By 2023, at least 35% of organizations will utilize generative AI as part of their Identity fabric functions. These organizations will substantially improve user experience and efficiency of their IAM controls.” [1]

Predictions for the future

The rise of decentralized Identity systems, like distributed Identity on the blockchain and advanced biometrics could offer better user control and security. As the Internet of Things grows, Identity fabric could become crucial in managing widespread networks, adapting to new challenges in Identity management and access control in increasingly complex digital environments.

With new technologies advancing the face of Identity management, Gartner^® predicts that hyper automation for digital business processes will be enabled by nonhuman entities. [2]

This implies that Identity fabric could drive IAM functional convergence and interoperability in the cloud and support the hybrid IAM environment. Organizations that adopt Identity fabric principles can increase their Identity fabric maturity.

1 Gartner®, “Identity and Access Intelligence Innovation With Generative AI,” Homan Farahmand, August 2, 2023.

2 Gartner®, “Outlook for Identity and Access Management, 2023,” Henrique Texeira, 2023

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Identity fabric implementation: best practices

Four steps to an effective Identity fabric strategy:

Step 1: Assessment

Decompose and evaluate the existing IAM infrastructure. 

Step 2: Planning

Map out how each life cycle, authentication, and provisioning function is needed to support individual constituencies like workforce, workloads, devices, partners, and customers. Analyze each tool and its functionality to develop an Identity access management capability plan, then decide which functions to prioritize.

Step 3: Integration

Update the Identity and access management framework. Begin by enhancing how IAM tools work together, using a flexible approach. Adapt your tools as required, linking them with a modern Identity protocol or proprietary APIs. Decide whether to use comprehensive IAM solutions or a mix of specialized options. Choose IAM providers that offer multiple functions and bolster them with specific tools. 

Step 4: Test and deploy

Evaluate all tools and applications for their compatibility with current Identity standards, then test extensively before full-scale deployment.

Getting started with an Identity fabric

Identity fabric is the blueprint for the future of unified digital interactions. Ready to refine or redesign your Identity management solutions? Consider Okta’s Identity fabric approach to IAM, uniting the pillars of Zero Trust maturity with Identity at the core. Empower your organization with a strong digital strategy that leverages Identity fabric immunity and a seamlessly connected and secure user experience that attracts and retains customers.