Sailpoint Tutorial

I think you are here to learn more about Sailpoint and why organizations need it. Well, this Sailpoint tutorial has been designed in a simple way to clear all your doubts and give you a complete overview of its core components & working style.

In this digital era, Organizational security has become the most significant challenge as cybercriminals find new ways to break into any complex system and steal data. According to Statista, in the 2022 1st quarter, over 15 million records were accessed by cybercriminals across the globe. 

Data breaches through network perimeters have come down, and cyber criminals are majorly targeting user accounts to gain unauthorized access. Typical user accounts include access credentials for employees, contractors, software boats, vendors, etc. 

It is quite a challenging task to manually manage the identities of organizations as they consist of thousands of employees, hundreds of applications, data on-prem, in the cloud, files containing sensitive information, and much more. Organizations worldwide use IAM tools to tackle this problem, securely manage user accounts, and improve productivity. 

What Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity and access management (IAM) is a technological breakthrough in cybersecurity that helps organizations securely manage their digital identities. Sailpoint IAM simplifies the work for IT security teams and enables greater control over all types of identities in an organization.

IAM tools help you assign required privileges to different job roles and have greater control and visibility into user activity. Moreover, it securely stores user profiles and governance functions and doesn't expose sensitive information to unauthorized users.

Want to become a Sailpoint Security Expert? Great! Check out our "Sailpoint Certification Course" delivered by experienced certified Sailpoint instructors.


What is Sailpoint

Sailpoint is a next-generation identity management solution that enables organizations with capabilities to effectively manage digital identities, employee permissions, data access, information security, compliance, and more from a centralized platform. It also helps organizations identify malicious operations and policy violations, secure sensitive information, etc.

To match with modern requirements & to prevent data breaches, Sailpoint offers built-in AI and machine learning technology which allows organizations to automate workflows, analyze risks, define roles, etc. Using Sailpoint, you can perform various security tasks such as compliance management, data classification, access modeling, threat detection and more.

Sailpoint Components

Sailpoint offers simplified custom identity and access management solutions that are easy to scale and suitable for dynamic business environments. The list of Sailpoint components is designed to address the sophisticated needs of organizations of all types and sizes.

  • IdentityIQ Compliance Manager
  • IdentityIQ Lifecycle Manager
  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  • Privileged Account Management 
  • Connectors and Integration 
  • Cloud Access Management
  • Password Manager
  • Access Risk Management

Let's clearly understand each Sailpoint component in detail:

1) IdentityIQ Compliance Manager

Sailpoint Identity IQ Compliance Manager is an advanced governance mechanism that automates Access Certification, Automated Policy Management, Audit Reporting, and Analytics.  It streamlines the process to be aligned with compliance, enforces & manages policies to prevent unauthorized access, and ensures audit readiness. 

2) IdentityIQ Lifecycle Manager

Sailpoint IdentityIQ Lifecycle Manager is another core competency of Sailpoint. It automates provisioning tasks and manages user access changes. It allows a self-service interface for requesting and approving access. 

The lifecycle manager in an organization is closely integrated with two elements: user lifecycle activities (joining, moving within, leaving) and core identity process (provision, de-provision, alter).

3) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Sailpoint is leveraging AI and ML capabilities to deliver efficient identity and Access management performance. Sailpoint predictive identity allows you to detect suspicious access and maintain greater & up-to-date compliance across organizations. Machine learning technology recommends the insights you need to enhance security.

4) Privileged Account Management

The privileged Account Management component gives a straightforward approach to effectively managing & extending the accessibility of privileged accounts within the organization. It is a centralized platform to provide, govern, and control highly privileged accounts.

5) Connectors and Integration

Sailpoint offers extensive connector libraries to simplify integration processes with various application systems. It has 100-plus built connectors to manage the identity on on-prem, cloud, or hybrid environments.

6) Cloud Access Management

Sailpoint Cloud Access management component helps you secure the accessibility of users & systems across the cloud environments. It offers you complete visibility into workloads, finds anomalies, & enhances access policies.

7) Password Manager

IdentityIQ Password Manager streamlines user password management across different environments, applications, devices, and browsers.  Moreover, it offers easy options to manage & enforce enterprise-grade policies & minimizes operational costs.

8) Access Risk Management

Sailpoint Access Risk Management component automatically analyzes risk factors before granting access to any user, application, or device.

Related Article: Sailpoint Interview Questions

User Provisioning In Sailpoint

User provisioning is creating, storing, updating, and deleting a user account with access to multiple organizational resources. Account provisioning requires user information such as name, department, job title, entitlements, attributes, and other related information. Once the user provisioning is over, the next step is to provide the required access to the organizational resources.

Changes made to the user provisioning in the database are automatically reflected throughout the user lifecycle. User accessibility may be upgraded or degraded based on the requirements of an organization.

Types of User Provisioning

Self-Service: In this process, the users have certain rights to make modifications or updates, for example, password changes.

Discretionary: Here, in this method, an administrator will grant access to the users.

Workflow: Here, access is granted based on workflow requirements after getting permission from authorities.

Automated Provisioning: In this method, the user provisioning process is automated using software by following identity compliance. It helps administrators to focus on more critical tasks by automating mundane and easy tasks.

Roles in Sailpoint:

Roles play a significant role in grouping people in the same category and requiring the same access to perform their jobs. Roles are created based on the attributes such as job title, department, and other shared attributes. Roles are used to configure automated provisioning processes.

Types of Roles in Sailpoint:

In Sailpoint, we have below mentioned five roles:

  • Organization Role
  • Business Role
  • Custom Roles
  • Entitlement Roles
  • IT Roles

What is Certification in Sailpoint?

Certifications in Sailpoint are used as a governance method by designated authorities such as system administrators, owners, and managers to review the access of users in the organizations. Certifications allow authorities to frequently check their users' access to valuable resources and revoke access from their users if required.

Types of Sailpoint Certifications:

Following is the list of certifications available in Sailpoint:

  • Manager Certifications
  • Entitlement Owner Certifications
  • Application Owner Certifications
  • Account Group Certifications
  • Advanced Certifications
  • Event‐Based Certifications
  • Identity Certifications
  • Role Certifications

Sailpoint IdentityNow

Sailpoint IdentityNow is a cloud-based (SaaS) identity and access management solution that supports organizations in performing tasks such as user access control, increasing operational efficiency, improving audit response, etc. As it is a cloud-based platform, there is no need to install any additional software.

The following are the advantages of the Sailpoint IdentityNow platform:

  • Easy to set up the process
  • Scales up and down based on requirements
  • Auto addition of new features
  • Cost-effective
  • Easy to manage the platform
     

Sailpoint Advantages:

Any organization can maintain strong and consistent security using Sailpoint access management solutions. Below mentioned are the core benefits of Sailpoint:

1) Security:

Sailpoint IIQ enables organizations to control every user activity from a centralized platform. You can only give the proper access to the right resources to the right users. This process will enhance security and save your company from data leakages.

2) Visibility:

The Sailpoint platform offers you clear visibility into user profiles,  privileges, who has access to what resources, and much more. This can build trust, reduce IT intervention, and improve productivity.

3) Easy Password Management

password management process becomes much easier when you are using platforms like Sailpoint. It allows users to change and retrieve forgotten passwords. Hence, they need not depend on IT admins to help them.

4) Integration Flexibility:

Sailpoint allows easy and secure integration with any application, cloud, or on-prem environment. It comes with extensive built-in connector libraries.

Conclusion:

Sailpoint is constantly developing features to mitigate modern identity and access risks. Moreover, it offers clear visibility into user access, reduces risk, automates risk analysis, and does much more. I believe this Sailpoint tutorial helped you in gaining some insights.
 

By Tech Solidity

Last updated on February 19, 2024