Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced new capabilities to make it easier for mobile app developers to authenticate users and gain access to resources on the AWS cloud.
The new service features are part of AWS Cognito User Pools – App Integration and Federation, which is now in general availability release.
Amazon Cognito is a managed cloud service that provides authentication, authorization, and user management for web, mobile and even IoT applications. Some highlights:
- Amazon Cognito User Pools: create and maintain a user directory in order to add sign-up and sign-in to your mobile app or web application. You can also sign in users to a user pool through social identity providers as well as, SAML-based providers
- Amazon Cognito Federated Identities: enables the creation of unique identities for users and the ability to authenticate them with federated identity providers, such as Google or Facebook, for temporary, limited-privilege access to app resources
- Amazon Cognito Sync: allows you to synchronize user profile data across mobile devices and the web without the need to build a backend. It supports offline access, cross-device synchronizing, and local data caching of application-related user data so the user app experience remains consistent regardless of the device.
AWS also noted that the mobile client login can now provide a sign-up and sign-in for social identity providers including Facebook, Google, Login with Amazon, as well as through SAML with corporate identity providers such as Microsoft Active Directory.