Building a Robust Microservices Authentication System

Designed and developed a universal identity and access management system for my company that works both for users as well as services. Some of the technologies that I used are openfga, istio, opa, apigee, golang and more. Here’s how I approached it:

I started by defining the core requirements of the IAM system to ensure it could support authentication and authorization for both end users and service-to-service interactions. This included defining access policies, multi-tenancy support, role-based access control (RBAC), and fine-grained permissions management.

I used OpenFGA to handle complex relationship-based authorization needs, allowing us to define flexible policies that mapped directly to business roles and organizational hierarchies. For additional policy management and real-time authorization decisions, I integrated Open Policy Agent (OPA). OPA enabled dynamic, policy-based access controls with Rego policy language, ensuring that permissions could be centrally managed and applied at runtime.

To secure communication between microservices, I integrated Istio as a service mesh, enabling mutual TLS (mTLS) and enforcing authentication and authorization policies across services. Istio’s ability to manage service-to-service encryption and policy enforcement provided an added layer of security within the cluster, supporting both user-based and service-based authentication.

I used Apigee as our API gateway to manage and secure external access to services. With Apigee, I was able to define rate limiting, caching, and token-based authentication for APIs. This provided a centralized control point for all user and service interactions entering our environment, enhancing both security and observability.

I developed the core IAM components and services in Golang, taking advantage of its performance and concurrency support. Golang’s simplicity and speed allowed me to build a lightweight, scalable system that could handle high loads with minimal latency, ensuring a smooth experience for end users and services alike.

To simplify user access, I implemented Single Sign-On (SSO) and federated identity support using standard protocols like OAuth2 and OpenID Connect. This enabled seamless login experiences across different applications and allowed for identity federation with external identity providers.

Finally, I rigorously tested the IAM system for security, performance, and reliability. I conducted penetration tests, load testing, and policy validation to ensure that it could handle real-world scenarios, from high user traffic to complex, nested permission structures.

This IAM system now enables unified, secure access management across our organization, supporting both end users and services with a flexible, policy-driven approach. By combining technologies like OpenFGA, OPA, Istio, Apigee, and Golang, I was able to build a robust, scalable solution that aligns with our security and access needs.