Difference between SailPoint and AWS IAM

SailPoint and AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) are both solutions that manage access to digital resources, but they cater to different needs and operate at different layers of the IT ecosystem. Here's a breakdown of their primary differences, purposes, and functionalities:

SailPoint

SailPoint is an identity governance platform that provides comprehensive identity management and governance solutions for enterprises. Its capabilities extend beyond mere access management to include:

• Identity Governance: SailPoint offers extensive identity governance capabilities, allowing organizations to define, enforce, review, and audit access policies. It also provides detailed reporting and analytics for compliance purposes.
• Provisioning and Deprovisioning: Automated account provisioning and deprovisioning based on roles and policies, ensuring users have access to necessary resources from day one and that access is revoked when no longer needed or when they leave the organization.
• Access Requests and Self-service Management: Users can request access to resources through self-service portals, with workflows for approval. This streamlines access management and reduces IT overhead.
• Compliance and Auditing: SailPoint provides robust tools for ensuring compliance with internal policies and external regulations. It can automate the generation of reports and audits to demonstrate compliance.
• Integration Across Multiple Platforms: It integrates with a wide range of on-premises and cloud applications, providing a unified identity governance framework across the entire IT environment.

AWS IAM

AWS IAM is a cloud service that controls access to AWS services and resources securely. Unlike SailPoint, IAM is specifically designed for securing access to AWS resources and has a more narrow focus:

• Access Control to AWS Services: IAM enables users to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. You can create and manage AWS users and groups and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources.
• Fine-grained Permissions: It offers fine-grained permissions to allow very specific access rights to users, groups, roles, and resources within the AWS ecosystem.
• Identity Federation: AWS IAM supports identity federation for delegating access to users from other systems without creating an AWS account for each user, integrating with corporate directories via SAML, and even social identities.
• Multi-factor Authentication (MFA): It supports MFA for enhanced security, requiring users to provide additional forms of authentication beyond just a password.