Identity as Infrastructure

In thinking through different parts of key infrastructure in the modern IT landscape (storage, networking, compute), it strikes me that identity is another key part of that landscape. One could argue that identity falls under security and is already part of the core offerings of IT, but I think that fundamentally misconstrues the value proposition of identity. Identity at its core asks “who are you?” and “what do you want to do?”, which is the bedrock of security and to some extent all of IT, by leveraging the central idea of trying to figure out who someone is, identity fundamentally begins to shape the corporate, small business, and public environments in which identity is provided. Just as any other part of IT, identity mutually relies upon, and interacts with, all the other portions of IT (e.g. without anyone accessing compute, there is no compute, without the credentials/identity stored there is no way to access the system).

I think most people think of IAM/identity as an afterthought when it is a central to not just IT, but everyday life. Be it authenticating and authorizing to our phones, our computers, web apps, identity is integrated into every facet of modern life. As such it’s concerning to see so many treat identity and the components of identity representation (email, phone number, PII/PHI, etc…) as things that can be thrown away. Identity as infrastructure isn’t just referring to the IT world, but the ways in which we interact with each other, because without identity it is difficult if not impossible to constitute everyday life.

It’s because IAM helps answer the representation of some of these fundamental questions and daily interactions that I love identity and access management so much.