Google Cloud Identity and Access Management Concepts

External

• https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/overview

Internal

• Google Cloud Identity and Access Management

Overview

IAM allows granting granular access to Google Cloud resources. It supports the security principle of least privilege, which states that nobody should have more permission that they actually need. IAM manages control by defining who (the identity) has what access (the role) for which resource. Permissions to access resources are not granted directed to end users, but to roles. Roles are granted to authenticated members. The association between what roles are granted to which members is defined in an IAM Policy. IAM policies are attached to resources. When an authenticated member attempts to access a resource, IAM checks the resource's policy to determine whether the action is permitted.

Access Management Concepts

Resource

Google Cloud Platform Concepts | Resources

IAM Policy

An IAM Policy is attached to a resource.