Setup federation for CSP's
What is CSP federation?
In cloud computing, federation is about establishing trust between your organization’s identity system (often called an Identity Provider, or IdP) and the cloud provider’s resource management system (like AWS IAM, Azure RBAC, or Google IAM).
This allows users (and sometimes workloads) to access cloud resources without managing separate usernames, passwords, or long-lived credentials inside the CSP. Instead, they authenticate once with your central IdP, and the cloud trusts your IdP to assert who the user is and what permissions they should have.
How federation works (high-level flow)
Federation typically uses standard protocols like SAML 2.0 or OIDC (OpenID Connect):
A user wants to access cloud resources.
- The CSP redirects the user to your Identity Provider (IdP).
- The user authenticates with the IdP (e.g., corporate login, MFA).
- The IdP issues an assertion or token (SAML assertion or OIDC ID token) proving who the user is.
- The CSP trusts this assertion, thanks to the previously configured federation trust.
- The CSP maps the user’s identity to permissions (e.g., IAM role, RBAC role).
- The user gains access — without separate passwords or static keys in the CSP.
Key purposes of CSP federation
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Centralize authentication so users log in once and get access to multiple CSP accounts/projects.
- Delegated Access: Let external users (partners, contractors) access your cloud environment without local accounts.
- Temporary Credentials: Avoid long-lived keys by issuing short-lived, federated tokens or roles.
- Consistent Governance: Apply enterprise security policies and compliance rules uniformly.
Why this is important
Federation helps you:
- Centralize identity and access management across clouds.
- Reduce operational overhead (no separate credentials in each cloud).
- Enforce consistent security and compliance policies.