IAM Capacity
IAM capacity is the load an identity architecture can absorb: identities, accounts, events, authentications, decisions and scheduled processing.
- Synonym
- IAM sizing
Definition
Sizing an IAM platform is not a matter of counting users. Depending on the architecture, load depends on the number of identities and accounts, the number of connected applications and connectors, the volume of lifecycle events, the number of authentications, the number of authorization decisions evaluated at runtime, the size and frequency of review campaigns, transactions, scheduled jobs and API calls. These dimensions do not grow at the same pace: identity counts can stay flat while authorization decisions multiply as new applications or automated agents are connected.
Why it matters
Sizing based on user population alone regularly leads to platforms saturated by processing nobody counted.
The Ariovis perspective
"We have 50,000 users" is not enough to size an IAM platform. Two organisations with the same number of identities can generate completely different loads depending on their usage, their applications and their architecture.
Common pitfalls
- A common mistake is sizing a platform on user counts without measuring the events, jobs and decisions it actually produces.
Resources
Explore this category
These concepts matter most inside a real project.
The first conversation helps establish your context, the systems involved and the next useful decision.