The tight coupling between groups and roles in Saviynt EIC (Enterprise Identity Cloud) is a design choice that stems from the platform’s approach to access control and identity management. Here’s a breakdown of why this coupling exists and the historical reasoning behind it:
1. Unified Access Management:
In traditional Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) systems, roles are typically used to define access at a more abstract level (e.g., job functions or responsibilities), while groups are often used to manage memberships in specific applications or systems. In Saviynt, both groups and roles serve the same fundamental purpose: controlling access to resources.
By unifying roles and groups, Saviynt simplifies the administration of user entitlements and policies. Instead of treating roles and groups as completely separate entities, they are treated similarly, allowing for consistent access policies and simplified administration.
2. Historical Integration of Roles and Groups:
Early IGA solutions often relied heavily on role-based access control (RBAC) to manage user entitlements. Over time, groups became an important mechanism for application-specific entitlements. However, instead of managing two separate entities (roles for high-level access and groups for low-level entitlements), platforms like Saviynt merged these concepts to enable centralized management of access across the entire identity lifecycle.
By integrating them, EIC reduces the need for duplicating efforts to assign users to both roles and groups. Both roles and groups are used to manage entitlement assignments, making administration more efficient and flexible.
3. Role-Based Provisioning and Access Reviews:
Roles in Saviynt are essential not just for provisioning but also for access reviews, segregation of duties (SoD), and certification campaigns. Since groups in external systems (such as AD or application-specific groups) are often used to control entitlements, associating them with roles in Saviynt allows organizations to align group memberships with broader governance processes, such as role-based access control and SoD checks.
This integration enables:
• Easier management of access requests: Users can request access to roles, and Saviynt can provision the appropriate group memberships in external systems.
• Streamlined certifications: By grouping access under roles, Saviynt simplifies certification campaigns that would otherwise need to manage both groups and roles separately.
4. Consistency Across External Systems:
In many integrated systems like Active Directory (AD) or cloud applications, groups are the primary mechanism for managing access. Saviynt treats these external groups as part of its role-based access model, allowing external groups to be managed similarly to roles. This provides a consistent user experience, as admins don’t need to switch between different paradigms for managing access in various systems.
5. Historical Perspective:
Historically, many organizations were using group-based entitlements in systems like AD, but as RBAC and role-engineering practices matured, IGA vendors like Saviynt began unifying these concepts. As such, roles in Saviynt often represent business functions, while groups represent technical entitlements. The overlap of managing both under the same framework allows for streamlined governance and provisioning.
Regards,
Rushikesh Vartak
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