Access Management 7.2.2

Protect applications

AM provides authentication and authorization capabilities, but it requires a policy enforcement point (PEP) intercepting traffic to the applications.

ForgeRock offers Java agents, web agents, and IG as PEPs to enforce what AM decides in a way that is unobtrusive to the user.

Identity Gateway or AM web and Java agents?

ForgeRock Identity Gateway and the AM web and Java agents can both enforce policy, redirecting users to authenticate when necessary, and controlling access to protected resources. IG runs as a self-contained reverse proxy located between the users and the protected applications. Web and Java agents are installed into the servers where applications run, intercepting requests in that context.

Use IG to protect access to applications not suited for a web or Java agent, for example, those applications deployed on operating systems or web servers or containers not supported by the agents.

Web and Java agents have the advantage of sitting within your existing server infrastructure. Once you have agents installed into the servers with web applications or sites to protect, then you can manage their configurations centrally from AM.

For organizations with both servers on which you can install web and Java agents and applications that you must protect without touching the server, you can use agents on the former and IG for the latter.

For more information about agents, see the ForgeRock Web agents documentation, or the ForgeRock Java agents documentation.

For more information about IG, see the ForgeRock Identity Gateway documentation.