Fine-grained access control and visibility for Google Cloud resources with role-based permission management.
What is Google Cloud IAM?
Google Cloud IAM is the central permission system for all Google Cloud services. It enables fine-grained access control following the principle “who can do what on which resource”. With over 3,000 predefined roles and support for custom roles, IAM offers maximum flexibility for security architectures.
The service is completely free and offers 99.9% availability. IAM integrates seamlessly with Cloud Identity, Active Directory, and external identity providers via Workload Identity Federation.
Common Use Cases
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Centralized permission management through predefined and custom roles. Organization Policies enable enterprise-wide security guidelines. IAM Conditions provide context-based access control.
Service-to-Service Authentication
Service accounts enable secure communication between applications without hardcoded API keys. Workload Identity connects Kubernetes service accounts with IAM. Short-lived tokens increase security through automatic rotation.
Compliance and Audit
Cloud Audit Logs track all IAM changes and accesses. Policy Analyzer identifies excessive permissions. Access Transparency provides insight into Google access to customer data. Recommender suggests permission optimizations.
Multi-Cloud Identity Management
Workload Identity Federation enables authentication from AWS, Azure, or on-premise workloads without service account keys. OIDC and SAML 2.0 integration for external identity providers. Unified IAM policies across multiple cloud platforms.
IAM Comparison
vs. AWS IAM: Google Cloud offers flatter hierarchy and simpler policy syntax. AWS IAM uses JSON-based policies, GCP works with Resource Manager hierarchy. Google Cloud IAM Conditions are more flexible than AWS IAM Conditions.
vs. Azure Entra ID: Azure focuses more on user identity management, GCP IAM on resource access control. Google Cloud offers more granular predefined roles. Azure integrates deeper with Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
Integration with innFactory
As a Google Cloud partner, innFactory supports you with IAM implementations: security architecture, least privilege design, custom roles, organization policies, Workload Identity Federation, and compliance audits.
Contact us for consultation on IAM best practices and zero-trust architectures.
Available Tiers & Options
Standard
- Fully managed
- No additional costs
- Native GCP integration
- Granular permissions
- Complexity in large organizations
- Learning curve for IAM policies
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Google Cloud IAM?
Google Cloud IAM (Identity and Access Management) enables fine-grained access control for cloud resources. You can define who (identity) has what permission (role) on which resource. IAM is central to the security of all GCP services.
What is the difference between roles and permissions?
Permissions are granular access rights to individual API methods (e.g., compute.instances.create). Roles are collections of permissions. There are predefined roles (e.g., Compute Admin), primitive roles (Owner, Editor, Viewer), and custom roles.
How do service accounts work?
Service accounts are special accounts for applications and VMs rather than people. They enable secure authentication between services without hardcoded credentials. Service accounts can be assigned IAM roles and support Workload Identity Federation.
What are IAM Conditions?
IAM Conditions enable context-based access control. You can time-limit permissions, restrict to specific IP ranges, or bind to resource tags. Conditions use Common Expression Language (CEL) for flexible policy definitions.
How do I implement least privilege with IAM?
Use predefined roles instead of primitive roles, grant permissions at the lowest resource level, create custom roles for specific requirements, and regularly review Policy Analyzer and Recommender for unused permissions.
What does Google Cloud IAM cost?
Google Cloud IAM is completely free. There are no charges for using IAM policies, roles, service accounts, or audit logs. Only related services like Cloud Identity Premium or Workload Identity Pool have separate costs.
