Identity, from first principles.
A 24-hour primer on the core IAM domains — directory, access, identity governance, privileged access. The course every IAM career path opens with.
- 24 h
- Fundamentals
- 8 modules
By the end you will
- Explain the IAM lifecycle from joiner to leaver, end-to-end.
- Map a SaaS application catalog to access policies and SSO.
- Differentiate authentication, authorization, and federation.
- Read OIDC / SAML traces and identify common misconfigurations.
What you walk away with.
Explain the IAM lifecycle from joiner to leaver, end-to-end.
Map a SaaS application catalog to access policies and SSO.
Differentiate authentication, authorization, and federation.
Read OIDC / SAML traces and identify common misconfigurations.
Design a basic role model and certification cadence.
Understand the difference between IGA, PAM, CIAM, and zero-trust.
8 modules.
- 01
Foundations of identity
- Directory services 101 — AD, LDAP, cloud directories
- The identity lifecycle
- Identity vs account vs entitlement
- Common terminology and the regulator landscape
- 02
Authentication
- Password and credential basics
- MFA — TOTP, push, FIDO2 / passkeys
- OIDC and SAML, side by side
- Session management
- 03
Authorization
- RBAC, ABAC, and policy-based access
- Role engineering at small and enterprise scale
- Group sprawl and cleanup patterns
- 04
Identity Governance
- Joiner-mover-leaver workflows
- Access certification cadence
- Segregation of duties
- Audit evidence basics
- 05
Privileged access
- Privileged surface mapping
- Vaulting fundamentals
- Session brokering
- Just-in-time elevation primer
- 06
Customer identity
- Why workforce vs customer identity differ
- Sign-up flows and risk-adaptive auth
- B2B organizations
- Open standards: OAuth 2.1, FAPI
- 07
Zero-trust patterns
- Network-perimeter to identity-aware
- Conditional access and continuous verification
- Identity-aware proxies
- 08
Bringing it together — a 30-day plan
- How to inventory an existing IAM estate
- How to write your first audit-evidence pipeline
- Career paths in IAM
Before you start.
- A working understanding of enterprise IT (Active Directory, SaaS apps, network basics).
- Familiarity with at least one cloud platform — AWS, Azure, or GCP.
- No prior IAM platform experience required.
Common questions.
Is this course for engineers, security analysts, or compliance professionals?+
All three. We have intentionally built it as a practitioner primer — engineers walk out able to recognize the patterns, security analysts walk out able to map controls, compliance professionals walk out able to audit them.
What format is the course?+
Hybrid: 12 hours of cohort-based live sessions + 12 hours of self-paced labs. Cohorts run quarterly. We cap each cohort at 16 people so the live sessions stay discussion-shaped.
Is there a certification at the end?+
You receive an askmeidentity Practice certificate of completion that we recognize for our staffing engagements. It is not a vendor-issued certification (no Okta or SailPoint logo) — it is our internal practice signal.
Ready to start?
Cohorts run quarterly. Submit your application and a training lead will reply within five business days.