System for Cross-___domain Identity Management: Difference between revisions

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'''System for Cross-___domain Identity Management''' ('''SCIM''') is a standard for automating the exchange of user identity information between identity domains, or IT systems.

One example might be that as a company onboards new employees and separates from existing employees, they are added and removed from the company's electronic employee [[Directory service|directory]]. SCIM could be used to automatically add/delete (or, [[account provisioning|provision/de-provision]]) accounts for those users in external systems such as [[Google Workspace]], [[OfficeMicrosoft 365]], or [[Salesforce.com]]. Then, a new user account would exist in the external systems for each new employee, and the user accounts for former employees might no longer exist in those systems.

In addition to simple user-record management (creating and deleting), SCIM can also be used to share information about user attributes, attribute schema, and group membership. Attributes could range from user contact information to group membership. Group membership or other attribute values are generally used to manage user permissions. Attribute values and group assignments can change, adding to the challenge of maintaining the relevant data across multiple identity domains.<ref name="SCIM-19">{{cite book |author = Internet Engineering Task Force, Network Working Group|title = System for Cross-Domain Identity Management: Core Schema|version = Draft 19|date = May 11, 2015|url = http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-scim-core-schema-19|accessdate = 2015-05-17}}</ref>

The SCIM standard has grown in popularity and importance, as organizations use more [[Software as a service|SaaS]] tools.<ref name="SCIMming" /><ref name="SailPoint">{{cite press release | title = Identity Management Companies To Demonstrate Simple Cloud Identity Management (SCIM) Specification at Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) | publisher = SailPoint | date = October 18, 2011 | url = https://www.sailpoint.com/news/identity-management-companies-to-demonstrate-simple-cloud-identity-manageme | accessdate = May 11, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304091205/www.sailpoint.com/news/identity-management-companies-to-demonstrate-simple-cloud-identity-manageme | archive-date=2016-03-04 | url-status=dead}}</ref> A large organization can have hundreds or thousands of hosted applications (internal and external) and related servers, databases and file shares that require user provisioning. Without a standard connection method, companies must write custom software connectors to join these systems and their [[Identity management|Identity Management]] (IdM) system.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Grizzle | first = Kelly | title = SCIM: Provisioning users, killing connectors | journal = SecureID News | publisher = SecureID | date = March 10, 2014 | url = http://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/scim-provisioning-users-killing-connectors/ | accessdate = May 17, 2015}}</ref>

SCIM uses a standardised [[API]] through [[REST]] with data formatted in [[JSON]] or [[XML]].<ref name="SCIM-19" />

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The standard was initially called '''''Simple Cloud Identity Management''''' (and is still called this in some places), but the name was officially changed to ''System for Cross-___domain Identity Management (SCIM)'' when the IETF adopted it.<ref>{{cite web |last= Hunt |first= Phil |title= Standards Corner: SCIM and the Shifting Enterprise Identity Center of Gravity |website= Oracle Fusion Middleware (blog) |publisher= Oracle |date= February 27, 2014 |url = https://blogs.oracle.com/fusionmiddleware/entry/standards_corner_scim_and_the | accessdate= May 17, 2015 }}</ref>

[[Interoperability]] was demonstrated in October, 2011, at the Cloud Identity Summit, an [[Identity management|IAM]] industry conference. There, user accounts were provisioned and de-provisioned across separate systems using SCIM standards, by a collection of [[Identity management system|IdM software]] vendors: [[Okta (identity management)|Okta]], [[CyberArk]], [[Ping Identity]], [[SailPoint]], [[Technology Nexus]] and [[UnboundID]].<ref name="SailPoint" /> In March 2012, at IETF 83 in Paris, [[interoperability]] tests continued by the same vendors, joined by [[Salesforce.com]], BCPSoft, [[WSO2]], Gluu, and Courion (now [[SecureAuth]]) nine companies in total.<ref>{{cite web | title = Logistics and attendee info for the March 2012 SCIM interop event | website = SCIM, Simple Cloud Identity Management | date = April 26, 2012 | url = https://code.google.com/p/scim/wiki/FirstInteropEvent | accessdate = May 11, 2015}}</ref>

SCIM is the second standard for exchanging user data, but it builds on prior standards (e.g. [[Service Provisioning Markup Language|SPML]], [[Portable Contacts|PortableContacts]], [[vCard]]s, and [[LDAP Data Interchange Format|LDAP directory services]]) in an attempt to be a simpler and more widely adopted solution for cloud services providers.<ref name="SCIM-19-intro">{{cite book | author= Internet Engineering Task Force, Network Working Group | title = System for Cross-Domain Identity Management: Core Schema | version = RFC7643 | date = September 2015 | section = Section 1, Introduction | url = https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7643#section-1 | accessdate = 2023-05-19}}</ref>