June 2021 Summaries

The conference focused on identity and access management (IAM) and featured various sessions, including talks on identity proofing, FIDO, and the future of IAM. The event addressed COVID-19 concerns, with attendees noting a lack of rapid testing stations and vaccination checks, but overall felt safe. The in-person experience was considered more engaging than virtual ones, allowing for better interaction and spontaneity. Identity proofing solutions were discussed, focusing on automatic recognition of government documents, facial recognition, and ensuring manual fallbacks when machine learning fails. FIDO, an alliance promoting strong passwordless authentication, was also a key theme, with attendees discussing its adoption in various industries. The conference provided valuable insights into the complexities of IAM, highlighting the need for custom solutions to manage multiple identity stores and applications. Overall, the event was well-organized and offered a platform for networking and learning about emerging IAM trends.

Stewart Ritchie, founder and managing director at Powered By Coffee, discusses how his agency, which specializes in WordPress development for the media industry, utilizes FusionAuth to address their clients' authentication needs. FusionAuth is employed to centralize user data, manage access to content, and handle user authentication and access control, which significantly improves performance by reducing the reliance on WordPress's user management system. This approach allows for enhanced caching and performance on high-traffic sites, ultimately reducing server requirements. Although initially introduced to FusionAuth by a client, Ritchie continues to advocate for its use due to its developer-friendly features, API options, and reliable support. He mentions using various FusionAuth setups, including a managed cloud instance and Docker configurations, and expresses a desire for a self-triggered database backup feature on the enterprise support plan.

The acquisition of an authentication system vendor can have significant implications for businesses relying on their services, prompting them to assess potential changes in support, pricing, and integration options. Companies should review their existing contracts to understand permissible changes and evaluate their current usage to identify critical features. Engaging with account managers is crucial for negotiating long-term contracts and understanding migration timelines. Businesses need to explore alternative vendors or solutions, such as self-hosted, open-source, or custom-built systems, to prepare for possible transitions. Additionally, stakeholders should consider the impact on ongoing and planned projects, ensuring a consensus on priorities. This proactive approach helps mitigate risks and ensures readiness for changes following an acquisition.

Matthew Reschke, CIO at Sunfinity Renewable Energy, shares his experience with FusionAuth as their primary authentication platform. He and his team integrated FusionAuth into their existing infrastructure, replacing their custom authentication system. They chose self-hosting for cost control, privacy, and flexibility. FusionAuth acts as an identity provider for various 3rd party applications, including Google GSuite, OSTicket, SnipeIT, ERPNext, SuiteCRM, Nextcloud, GitLab, and others. The team uses OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, and Kong to manage authentication and API access. They have implemented granular permission strings to control app-specific details. FusionAuth has saved them time and money by providing a simple and intuitive solution for their authentication needs.

Software applications often require access to data from other services on behalf of their users, and using standards-compliant authentication protocols like OAuth and SAML is crucial for secure and efficient integrations. These standardized protocols have been publicly vetted by experts, ensuring a trusted framework that reduces risk, facilitates transferable learning across projects, and enhances interoperability with other systems. By employing standardized protocols, organizations can leverage existing code libraries, accelerating development and reducing maintenance burdens, while ensuring that edge cases are typically well-handled. This approach not only simplifies onboarding and collaboration but also provides peace of mind by aligning with industry best practices and expert insights.

This release of version 1.28 of FusionAuth has addressed several key issues for users on versions 1.27 and older, including enhancing identity linking capabilities with new configuration options such as anonymous links, create pending links, and link by username. The release also introduces a number of new identity providers including Epic Games, Nintendo, Sony PlayStation Network, Steam, Twitch, and Xbox, which can be used to integrate gaming platforms into applications. Additionally, the Client Credentials grant now supports an optional lambda function that can modify claims in the JWT generated by the grant. Other improvements include a reindex API, enhancements to the Email Send API, and support for different SAML identity provider formats. The release notes provide a detailed guide to the changes and new features included in this version.

FusionAuth has announced the release of its Advanced Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) offering, designed to align with its Developer Ergonomics approach, providing developers with flexibility and choice in deploying authentication within their organizations. The new feature enables layering of different authentication factors such as TOTP, multiple phone numbers or email addresses, step up authentication, applications, and new factors as they are introduced to the market. With FusionAuth Advanced MFA, developers can make choices about authentication that make sense for their particular business, allowing users to choose the factors that work best for them. The feature focuses on flexibility, including customizable message templates, flexible endpoints, support for multiple end-users, and step up authentication, which allows developers to layer in additional security measures based on user activity. FusionAuth Advanced MFA is now available, offering a more intuitive way to manage user security and aligning with the company's commitment to Developer Ergonomics.

The FusionAuth community has an active online forum where users discuss various topics related to the software, including how to integrate it with other systems and troubleshoot common issues. Recent discussions include integrating FusionAuth with NextAuth for refresh tokens, Single Sign-On (SSO) using the Login API, and troubleshooting duplicate key errors with an API Gateway. The community benefits from sharing knowledge and experiences, which helps identify and fix software bugs, ultimately leading to a better user experience. Users can participate in the forum without creating an account or view current discussions anonymously.