Enterprise-managed IAM: An SRE team case study

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Enterprise-managed identity and access management (IAM) allows cloud directors to centrally configure entry and safety settings for the whole group. To study in regards to the fundamentals, see “How enterprise-managed IAM works.”

The case research on this weblog publish reveals learn how to simply and securely implement and handle a site reliability engineering (SRE) group’s entry throughout an enterprise.

Case research

A big banking consumer has a centralized web site reliability engineering (SRE) group that manages operations for all assets within the group. The consumer makes use of federation to authenticate customers to IBM Cloud enterprise accounts. All groups use Kubernetes and IBM Cloud Databases assets as a part of their deployment. The SRE group wants operational entry to those assets for each group in each account underneath the corporate’s IBM Cloud enterprise.

Because the groups introduce new assets, the SRE group manages these assets, as properly. Manually managing this entry setup throughout a rising variety of accounts is error-prone, time-consuming and doesn’t meet sure audit controls for the reason that assigned entry will be up to date by the kid account directors.

By utilizing enterprise-managed IAM templates to outline entry for his or her SRE group and assign them to the group’s accounts, the consumer’s course of modified from an ongoing effort to a one-time setup exercise. Now, SRE entry is included in each established and newly created accounts. Moreover, this entry can’t be up to date by the kid account administrator.

On this publish, we’ll present step-by-step directions on learn how to apply this answer in your group.

Stipulations

Be within the root enterprise account.
Ensure that the enterprise consumer performing this activity has Template Administrator and Template Project Administrator roles on IAM providers and not less than the Viewer function on the Enterprise service. For extra data, see “Assigning access for enterprise management.”
Ensure that baby accounts allow the enterprise-managed IAM setting. For extra data, see “Opting in to enterprise-managed IAM for new and existing accounts.”

Resolution

First, create a trusted profile template for the SRE group members and add entry coverage templates to handle all IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service clusters and IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB cases within the baby accounts. Subsequent, assign the trusted profile template to the account group containing the account(s) to handle. Lastly, we’ll grant extra entry coverage templates to the SRE group by creating a brand new trusted profile template model with the extra entry required and updating the prevailing task accounts.

To implement this answer, we’ll full the next steps:

Create a trusted profile template.
Add a belief relationship.
Add entry coverage templates.
Overview and commit the trusted profile template.
Assign the trusted profile template.

Then, we’ll replace the task with these steps:

Create a brand new template model.
Add a further entry coverage template.
Overview and commit the trusted profile template.
Replace the prevailing task to model 2.

Steps to create and assign a template

1. Go to Handle > Entry (IAM). Within the Enterprise part, click on Templates > Trusted Profiles > Create. Click on Create to create a trusted profile template for the SRE group:

2. Add a belief relationship to dynamically add the SRE group to the trusted profile primarily based in your Id supplier (IdP):

This will likely be primarily based on the claims out there by your IdP:

3. Go to the Entry tab to create entry insurance policies:

Administrator function for the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service:

Administrator function for IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB:

4. Overview and commit the trusted profile and insurance policies templates. Committing templates prevents them from being modified:

5. Assign the trusted profile template to the account group. By deciding on the whole account group, the system will routinely assign templates to the brand new accounts when they’re added or moved in:

After the task is full, the members of the SRE group can log in to the accounts underneath the account group and have the required entry to carry out their duties.

As your groups and cloud workloads develop, you would possibly must allow the SRE group to handle different assets. Within the following instance, we’re granting the SRE group entry to handle IBM Cloudant along with their current entry.

Steps to replace a template and task

1. First, since we have to replace an assigned template, we have to create a brand new model of the SRE group template:

2. Since we wish to develop the SRE group entry, we’ll create a brand new coverage template with entry to Cloudant assets:

3. Commit the trusted profile template and coverage template:

4. Now, we have to replace the task from model 1 to model 2. First, swap to template model 1:

Within the Assignments tab, replace the task:

As soon as the task is full, the SRE group will now be capable of handle IBM Cloudant assets along with the prevailing IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service and IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB entry.

Conclusion

Enterprise-managed id and entry administration (IAM) is a robust answer that simplifies and centralizes entry and safety configuration. On this article, we explored how this method is usually a game-changer for managing entry to assets throughout a rising variety of accounts.

The challenges confronted by the banking consumer in managing entry for his or her SRE group throughout a number of accounts had been complicated and time-consuming. Nonetheless, by leveraging enterprise-managed IAM templates, they remodeled an ongoing effort right into a one-time setup exercise. This streamlined entry provisioning and enhanced safety by guaranteeing that entry management remained constant and enforced throughout accounts.