As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile and dispersed, identity and access management becomes more important in ensuring organisational security. While managing user identities and controlling access are separate tasks, they are closely related. Identity and access management (IAM) needs to be a key part of business security strategy, particularly as organisations grow and IT architectures become more complex. Here are five things to consider when planning your IAM strategy.

1. Identity data infrastructure

It is not possible to manage user identities without having an appropriate data infrastructure in place to store user information. This generally involves the use of directory and metadirectory systems, usually based on lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP), industry standard for accessing directory data. Check the other 4 steps on the Five steps to mastering identity and access management article.