---
title: Identity and access provisioning
description: Users and their access are inextricably linked. So, why are provisioning processes often separate from access governance processes?
image: https://blog.empowerid.com/hs-fs/file-20521256-jpg/images/identity_and_access_provisioning.jpg
---

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# All-In-One Identity Management and Cloud Security

Emerging technologies are challenging old paradigms and unveiling new ways of approaching the security discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.

EmpowerID has embedded innovative technologies in every aspect, providing flexible and mature IAM capabilities in the cloud, on premise and in hybrid environments, addressing the mission-critical need across increasingly heterogeneous technology environments, and meeting increasingly rigorous compliance requirements.

# Identity and access provisioning

Posted by [Edward Killeen](https://blog.empowerid.com/blog-1/author/edward-killeen) on Wed, Feb 13, 2013

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Users and their access are inextricably linked.  The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) estimates that users are only 58% productive without their proper access.  So, why are provisioning processes often separate from access governance processes?

![identity and access provisioning](https://blog.empowerid.com/hs-fs/file-20521256-jpg/images/identity_and_access_provisioning.jpg)It should be an identity ecosystem.  When a user is initially provisioned from HR (or a contractor database or a customer self-registration), you apply an initial role to that user dynamically based on what you know about them.  That role (or roles) determine in which systems the user needs to be provisioned.  An example is: sales rep in Toledo will need an Active Directory account, an Exchange mailbox, an ERP account and a salesforce.com account.

Once that user has these accounts, the user will need to have roles within these applications.  The ability to modify groups, access SharePoint sites, place customer orders, modify CRM records and anything else that is role based.  This is the idea that you are provisioning access and accounts.

Some systems, like your VPN or shared folders or Business Intelligence app, may use AD groups to grant these roles.  And this is why provisioning access goes beyond just the application role based access control listed above to group based access control.  No organization can manually keep up with all of the group membership requirements that is required; you need to [provision group membership dynamically based on rules and roles](https://blog.empowerid.com/blog-1/bid/266785/Active-Directory-group-management-and-more). 

Groups are intertwined in your everyday corporate life, from distribution lists to printer access.  However, role based access control is arguably the more modern approach to access governance, reaching outside of the Microsoft ecosystem better and being generally more flexible.  Having group membership controlled by your role makes this easy.

This can all happen dynamically in the first minutes of a user's employment, but users don't sit still for much longer than that.  Estimate vary, but on average, there is a 20% internal turnover per year.  These are employees that are still with the company, but have some sort of job change whether it be a redeployment, promotion, move, or restructuring.  Then the whole identity and access provisioning scenario starts again.

Having a [metadirectory](http://www.empowerid.com/products/metadirectoryandsyncservices) sitting in the middle of this identity ecosystem gives you flexibility to inventory HR or AD or any other authoritative source or sources to detect these changes.  Once the change to a user happens, all of the application provisioning can be re-evaluated, de-provisioning accounts they no longer need, provisioning new accounts and changing roles within the applications.

Group memberships get re-evaluated, removing access to old and granting access to new.  EmpowerID can generate reports to show new resultant access for the new roles for auditors or new managers to review.

Then if an offboarding event does happen, all accounts and access are linked to an EmpowerID person object and can be removed in one fell swoop, with accounts de-activated and an audit trail to show access has been removed from everything except their 401K account.

Too often, provisioning is looked at as a way to create an account without considering that access is as important as the user accounts.  Then the lifecycle of the user needs to be considered, again not just as an account but the role and access level required.

EmpowerID's unique visual workflow component, metadirectory and RBAC engine work together as part of the [IAM platform](http://www.empowerid.com) to keep privisioning, evaluating and re-provisioning user accounts and access throughout a user's lifecycle.

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 Tags: [Role Based Access Control (RBAC)](https://blog.empowerid.com/blog-1/topic/role-based-access-control-rbac), [User provisioning](https://blog.empowerid.com/blog-1/topic/user-provisioning), [Identity and Access Management (IAM)](https://blog.empowerid.com/blog-1/topic/identity-and-access-management-iam)

### About EmpowerID

EmpowerID is the all-in-one Identity Management and Cloud Security platform designed for people.  Globally managing millions of identities in diverse enterprises, EmpowerID offers comprehensive provisioning, single sign-on and access governance coupled with an industry leading user experience. 

Built on a single codebase for manageability and scalability, EmpowerID ships with a powerful API, a visual workflow designer and over 400 ready-to-use workflows for rapid deployment.

 

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