Glossary

SCIM stands for System for Cross-domain Identity Management. ‘System’ here refers to a standardized format for the exchange of identity information. ‘Cross-domain’ references an issue with early solutions to Single Sign-On services which relied on cookies and were single domain only as a result. ‘Identity Management’ is the true subject of SCIM - and refers to how SCIM facilitates information exchange between an identity provider (IdP) or identity and access management (IAM) system and cloud-based applications.

SCIM was created to facilitate IT admins governing permissions and access to cloud-based applications in employee accounts. SCIM enables automation of the creation, maintenance, and updating processes for these accounts. Without a standardized framework, provisioning must be done individually and manually, which is a tedious, lengthy process that introduces additional security risks.

As teams grow, pivot projects, and experience employee turnover, the number of user accounts increases, as does the number of associated permissions and required IT actions. Requests to create new users, offboard old ones and add or remove permissions from current accounts all take up IT resources that could otherwise be spent elsewhere.

With a standardized protocol like SCIM, user data is stored in a consistent and predictable format and can be communicated across different apps easily. This enables IT departments to automate the provisioning and de-provisioning process while managing user permissions through a single system. Through the use of an automatic transfer process, the risk of human error is minimized.

SCIM uses JavaScript Open Notation (JSON), an open-standard file and data exchange format, to support seamless interoperability across domains. Without an open standard, the necessary format of information transfer between different web services and cloud-based applications might differ ever-so-slightly, requiring a unique and manual solution for each integrated service. Manual IT control is simply not a solution that scales.