Exploring Identity Patterns

In this chapter, we will finally put into practice the knowledge that we acquired throughout the book before now. We now know how the OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth 2.0 protocols work and, most importantly, what authentication flows they enable.

Understanding the right scenario for an authentication flow is a key aspect for an enterprise architect during the design of an application: the patterns described in this chapter can be used as a quick reference to guide the decision-making process around the authentication and authorization of an application.

To make a parallel with the programming world, these patterns can be applied to authentication in the same way that today, we, as programmers, design and write the code of a modern cloud application architecture by leveraging software design patterns (e.g. Ambassador, retry, sidecar, etc.).

This chapter will give you the tools (or patterns) to choose the best authentication design for an application...