AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) has some great features that enable you to control access and permissions to your AWS services and resources. There are numerous benefits, of which six are detailed below. Click each link to learn more about everything from managing users to using identity federation for delegated access to the AWS Management Console or AWS APIs.
Enhanced security
IAM enables security best practices by allowing you to grant unique security credentials to users and groups to specify which AWS service APIs and resources they can access. IAM is secure by default; users have no access to AWS resources until permissions are explicitly granted.
Granular control
IAM provides the granularity to control a user’s access to specific AWS services and resources using permissions. For example, terminating EC2 instances or reading the contents of an Amazon S3 bucket.
Temporary credentials
In addition to defining access permissions directly to users and groups, IAM lets you create roles. Roles allow you to define a set of permissions and then let authenticated users or EC2 instances assume them, getting temporary access to the resources you define.
Flexible security credential management
IAM allows you to authenticate users in several ways, depending on how they want to use AWS services. You can assign a range of security credentials including passwords, key pairs, and X.509 certificates. You can also enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on users who access the AWS Management Console or use APIs
Leverage external identity systems
You can use IAM to grant your employees and applications access to the AWS Management Console and to AWS service APIs, using your existing identity systems. AWS supports federation from corporate systems like Microsoft Active Directory as well as external Web Identity Providers like Google and Facebook.
Learn more about leveraging external identity systems using federation »
Seamlessly integrated into AWS services
IAM is integrated into most AWS services. This provides the ability to define access controls from one place in the AWS Management Console that will take effect throughout your AWS environment.
Intended usage & restrictions
Your use of this service is subject to the Amazon Web Services Customer Agreement.
Get started with AWS IAM
