Sorting out workload IAM fundamentals, technology options, integrations, or pricing? Our FAQ provides precise answers – along with practical next steps.
Sorting out workload IAM fundamentals, technology options, integrations, or pricing? Our FAQ provides precise answers – along with practical next steps.
Workload identity and access management (WIAM) is a security approach that assigns unique identities to workloads and manages their access to resources based on defined policies. Unlike traditional methods that rely on static credentials, WIAM uses a variety of credential types including dynamic, short-lived credentials and real-time identity verification to ensure secure, policy-driven access control. The concept of attestation means that the identity of the workload is cryptographically verified using a 3rd party attestor. Conditional access policies enable Zero Trust controls to be enforced even when the end service doesn’t directly support them.
Most IAM vendors are focused on users, while Workload IAM are for non-user identities, sometimes called non-human or machine identities.
A workload refers to any non-human entity—such as AI agents, applications, services, scripts, or containers—that is accessing a service or data. A client workload (the source) will be accessing a server workload (the destination). Your application running in your Kubernetes environment is an example of a client workload. The client workloads often need to communicate with server workloads inside and outside of your network, necessitating secure authentication and authorization mechanisms. Using Stripe for payment processing and AWS S3 buckets to store and access data are examples of server workloads.
Traditional approaches often involve hardcoded credentials, shared secrets, or static API keys, which pose significant security risks. These methods are susceptible to breaches, lack scalability, and are challenging to maintain and audit. Aembit addresses these issues by eliminating the need for stored secrets, providing dynamic credential injection, and offering centralized policy management for improved security and compliance. Aembit’s secretless approach also means a better developer experience. Developers no longer need to store, access, and code for authentication.
Yes. Aembit applies zero trust principles to workloads by verifying the identity of each workload when it requests access in real-time, regardless of the workload’s location. This involves cryptographic identity verification, policy-based access controls, and the use of short-lived credentials, ensuring that only authorized workloads can access specific resources. Aembit also applies MFA for workloads, just like you do for users.
When your users are accessing your data and services, you can ensure that the system is secured using corporate issued software, verify their geo-location, and that they are connecting during business hours. You can now do the same for your workloads.
While specific comparisons depend on the strategy or product in question, Aembit distinguishes itself by offering a secretless, identity-based approach to workload access management. Unlike traditional IAM solutions that focus on human users or rely on static credentials, Aembit provides dynamic, policy-driven access controls tailored for non-human identities across diverse environments.
Most organizations are using vaults to store credentials. They come to Aembit because they don’t want to worry about credential rotation or leaking. They also want to enable a better user experience for their developers while upgrading the security of their workload access.
See why teams switch from vaults and homegrown systems to Aembit
Open-source solutions can offer some flexibility and rely on community support but require significant effort to implement and maintain. They often lack the comprehensive features, integrations, and support that enterprise environments demand. When you run into a bug, who do you call and how long before that bug can be addressed?
SPIFFE is an example of open-source software for identity. While SPIFFE, along with SPIRE, an implementation of SPIFFE are available for “free”, the cost of actually trying to use it is significant. First, SPIFFE and SPIRE are limited in features, such as conditional access, limited in the type of credentials used (mostly certificates) and aren’t used much outside of Kubernetes. You will need many extensions and add-ons to do basic things like federation and GUI-based management. Moreover, if you need support, you’ll need to buy managed SPIRE from SPIRL, or wait for a good samaritan in a forum to help answer your questions.
Aembit’s global team provides a turnkey solution with centralized management, dynamic credentialing, and robust security features, reducing operational overhead and enhancing security posture. Aembit doesn’t require dozens of extensions and plug-ins like open-source solutions.
Dynamic, short-lived credentials are considered the safest for workload authentication. Aembit utilizes such credentials, issuing them just-in-time based on verified workload identities and predefined policies. This approach minimizes the risk of credential compromise and eliminates the need for long-term secret storage. These short-lived credentials can be in the form of OIDC tokens and JWTs, along with tokens from AWS, Azure, and Google Workload Identity Federation.
While Aembit recommends dynamic, short-lived credentials, we know that many organizations and the software they use may not support them yet, so we still support static username and password and API keys.
See how Aembit issues credentials just-in-time, not just in theory.
Aembit integrates seamlessly with various environments and tools.
Aembit Cloud can be configured to use your identity providers (IdPs), vaults, your storage systems, Splunk, your endpoint detection and response (EDR), and much more. This allows us to use the intelligence that your existing tool stack has, as well as, informing your tools of all of the workload activity that Aembit sees.
Aembit Edge can be deployed as a Kubernetes sidecar, agent, serverless extension, or virtual machine, on-premises or in your cloud service provider. This setup allows for transparent credential injection and policy enforcement without altering your existing applications.
Learn more about integrating Aembit with your environment.
Aembit is available in three tiers: Starter, Teams, and Enterprise. Enterprise tier gives you access to all features and unlimited number of workloads and access policies. Many customers are signed-up at $20 a workload client a month, while larger customers have custom pricing based on their scaling needs. We can help meet your budget.
Learn more about our pricing.
Absolutely! Aembit offers a free-forever tier that allows you to manage up to 10 workloads and 10 access policies. This also includes 24-hour event log retention and community support.
Chat with our team, or request a quick walkthrough tailored to your environment.
(Aembit customer)
With Aembit, I finally have a single point for access control and visibility for workloads, along with a consistent implementation of strong security, all transparent to my developers.
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