Access Orchestration

Access orchestrator for smooth operation

Orchestration is at the heart of any Identity and Access Management (IAM) system. All requests for access to applications or resources pass through the orchestrator. This allows us to provide a seamless user experience as far as identity, authentication and access control is concerned.

Why use TrustBuilder for orchestration?

The way orchestration is handled in TrustBuilder Server is one of the many strong points of our IAM solution.

Built-in connections

TrustBuilder was conceived to work together with a vast array of Identity Providers and Service Providers. This openness and the large number of built-in connections in TrustBuilder make orchestration easy.

Workflow Engine

Policies are a key ingredient for the orchestration between different servers. TrustBuilder offers a Workflow Engine featuring a Workflow Editor. This Workflow Editor provides a graphical visualization of the onboard authentication policy.

Open architecture

Besides supporting numerous open standards which allow of different authentication mechanisms, TrustBuilder connects to the security vendors when their authentication mechanism is required. The decoupling of authentication/federation ‘connectivity’ allows us to concentrate the effort into the actual setup and enforcement of the IAM.

Orchestration as the air traffic control tower of IAM

In an IAM system, the orchestrator performs the function of an air tower in traffic control. Just as planes request permission to take off or land, users request permission to access a resource or an application.

Onboarding flow

Before a user gets access to the system, he has to provide information on himself to the system. This happens in the onboarding flow. Administrators set up this onboarding flow using the graphical user interface of TrustBuilder’s Workflow Engine. What steps the onboarding flow contains, differs from one organization to another. Sometimes an email address will be verified, or a contract checked. All these small actions are orchestrated in the TrustBuilder Server.

Orchestration

The orchestrator will check information from different sources to verify whether the request can be granted. Depending on the policies that are set, the orchestrator will consult with different servers before the user is allowed granted access. A policy can, for instance, demand that an AD or LDAP server provides a username/password combination, and that a captcha server then verifies that the user is not a robot. To access a resource of a more sensitive nature, extra authentication methods may be called upon.

User self-management

Once a user is recognized by the system, the user can make changes to some of the information the system holds and that are part of the lifecycle of the journey with a company. For instance, a user can change a telephone number, request a new password,… In this way a user can manage his own identity through self-management.

Orchestration handles access requests

The orchestrator in TrustBuilder picks up all requests, analyzes them and forwards them to the targeted services. The orchestrator mainly deals with two types of requests.

Requests from TrustBuilder Gateway

When TrustBuilder Gateway gets a request from a user, it doesn’t know whether the user has the privileges to access the application or API they are requesting. This decision will be passed on to the orchestrator. Depending on the case, this will trigger the orchestrator to activate an authentication flow and/or return and an authorization decision to the gateway.

Federated authentication requests

This type of request occurs when TrustBuilder is involved in a federation scenario dealing with an identity or service provider. This could be a SAML or OIDC authentication request, or any other open standard request. In this case, the orchestrator will activate our own internal federation server, which will proxy the federation requests to the correct identity or service provider.

How to implement Access Orchestration

TrustBuilder makes implementing Identity and Access Management capabilities such as Access Orchestration as easy as possible. We built in connections to Identity Providers and Service Providers so you don’t need to customize these. We equipped the Workflow Engine with a Graphical User Interface that allows you to build customer journeys adapted to your business goals. Our platform conforms to all standards and our industry experience will help shorten time-to-market of your solutions.

Interested in more implementation info?
Check out our long read on the 5 keys to a successful implementation of your IAM.