Gartner defines access management (AM) as tools that include authentication, authorization, single sign-on (SSO) and adaptive access capabilities for modern standards-based web applications, classic web applications and APIs. AM’s purpose is to give people (employees, consumers and other users) and machines access to protected applications in a streamlined and consistent way that enhances the user experience. For people, SSO is part of the enhanced experience. AM is also responsible for providing security controls to protect the user session during runtime. It enforces authentication and runtime authorization using adaptive access. Lastly, AM can provide identity context for other cybersecurity tools and reliant applications to enable identity-first security.
Gartner defines identity governance and administration (IGA) as the solution to manage the identity life cycle and govern access across on-premises and cloud environments. To accomplish this, IGA tools aggregate and correlate disparate identity and access rights data, and provide full capability controls over accounts and associated access.