# What is Identity as a Service (IDaaS)?

> Identity as a service (IDaaS) is a cloud service model in which a provider delivers identity, credential, and access-management capabilities for customer organizations.

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- Language: en
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## Content

Depending on the service, these capabilities may include a hosted directory, authentication, multi-factor authentication, federation, single sign-on, provisioning, access policy, lifecycle workflows, reporting, and interfaces that connect applications and other identity sources.

IDaaS can reduce the infrastructure an organization operates directly and provide a consistent identity layer across software-as-a-service, cloud, and on-premises applications. It also creates a critical external dependency. Architecture and procurement should therefore address tenant isolation, administrative privilege, data use and location, key custody, integration security, audit access, portability, availability, incident response, and exit procedures.

### Key points

- **Service boundary:** Document which identity functions the provider performs, which systems remain authoritative, and which decisions and enforcement points stay with the customer or application.
- **Integration model:** Evaluate federation, provisioning, directories, APIs, agents, connectors, and recovery paths, including the privileges and failure modes of each component.
- **Assurance and resilience:** Match authentication and federation assurance to risk, protect provider administration, export useful logs, and plan for outages, compromise, and service termination.
- **Important limitation:** Moving identity functions to a service does not transfer accountability for access policy, lifecycle data, application authorization, configuration, or user recovery. Capabilities and security properties vary substantially between providers and service tiers.

### Related terms

[Identity and access management (IAM)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/identity-and-access-management/>) · [Federated identity](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/federated-identity/>) · [Single sign-on (SSO)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/single-sign-on/>) · [Multi-factor authentication (MFA)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/multi-factor-authentication/>) · [Conditional access](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/conditional-access/>)

### Sources

[NIST IR 8335 initial public draft (June 2021; comment period closed): Identity as a Service for Public Safety Organizations](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/ir/8335/ipd) · [NIST SP 800-63-4: Digital Identity Guidelines](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/63/4/final)

## Attribution and scope

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