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Why You Should Backup Your Identity Provider

Identity providers are the backbone of your authentication system. Learn why backing them up is crucial for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Idsync Team
December 28, 2024
2 min read

Why You Should Backup Your Identity Provider#

Your identity provider (IDP) is one of the most critical components of your infrastructure. It manages user authentication, authorization, and often contains irreplaceable data about your users. Yet, many organizations overlook the importance of backing up their IDP configuration and data.

The Hidden Risks#

Configuration Drift#

Over time, your IDP accumulates configuration changes. A misconfigured authentication flow, an accidentally deleted user pool attribute, or a changed MFA setting can bring your entire authentication system down. Without backups, rolling back these changes becomes a nightmare.

Human Error#

Let's face it – mistakes happen. A developer might accidentally delete a group that thousands of users depend on. An admin might change a critical setting during a routine maintenance window. These errors can cascade through your system, affecting user access across all your applications.

Compliance Requirements#

Many regulatory frameworks require you to maintain audit trails and the ability to restore data to a specific point in time. Without proper backups, meeting these compliance requirements becomes impossible.

What Should You Backup?#

A comprehensive IDP backup strategy should include:

  1. User Data – All user profiles, attributes, and metadata
  2. Groups and Roles – Group memberships and role assignments
  3. Application Configurations – OAuth clients, SAML configurations, API settings
  4. Authentication Policies – MFA settings, password policies, session configurations
  5. Custom Attributes – Any custom schemas or attributes you've defined

The Idsync Approach#

At Idsync, we believe IDP backup should be:

  • Automated – No manual intervention required
  • Continuous – Every change is captured as it happens
  • Granular – Restore individual items or entire configurations
  • Secure – Your data stays in your own storage

Getting Started#

If you're using AWS Cognito, you can start protecting your identity data today with Idsync. Our alpha program is now open, and we'd love to help you implement a robust backup strategy for your identity infrastructure.

Join our alpha program to get started.