Blog
Articles, tutorials, and field notes on identity, integration, API management, and application security — spanning nearly two decades of hands-on work.
When To Use Which (OAuth2) Grants and (OIDC) Flows
Update(07/01/2019): This is by far my most popular post. I’ve continued to update this article based on feedback and things that I have noticed. I’m trying to keep it relevant.Please leave feedback in the comments section.
An Alternative to Delegated Access in the Enterprise
Extending OAuth2 and OpenID Connect as the enterprise standard for API security
Understanding OpenID Connect Series
The following blog posts make up my series on OpenID Connect. This is part of the SAML2 vs JWT series.
SAML2 vs JWT: Understanding OpenID Connect Part 3
In part 1 and part 2 of Understanding OpenID Connect, core concepts and the first Authentication Flow (Authorization Code Grant Flow) were introduced. In part 3, we look at the remaining Authentication Flows (Implicit Flow and Hybrid Flow) and some other features of the OIDC specification.
SAML2 vs JWT: Understanding OpenID Connect Part 2
This post continues our discussion of OpenID Connect (OIDC). We look at one of the three Authentication Flows defined by the OIDC spec — the Authorization Code Grant Flow.
SAML2 vs JWT: Understanding OpenID Connect Part 1
This post builds upon what we learned about OAuth2 and JWT in previous posts. OpenID Connect will give us the final building block for the JWT-related use cases that this series will explore. The goal of this blog post is to provide a deep understanding of the OpenID Connect spec without having to…
Design Principles for Seamless User Authentication
This post was originally published as “Design Principles for Seamless User Authentication” on the Apigee Blog.
Keeping Your APIs Secure for Multiple User Types
This post was originally published as “Keeping Your APIs Secure for Multiple User Types” on the Apigee Blog.
The Tools of API Management — The Full Stack
In the first three API Management posts I wrote, we discussed “What are APIs?(The Technical Perspective)”, “What is API Management?”, and “The Anatomy of an API Management Solution”. Continuing with this theme, we will explore the API Management Stack. So, what do I mean by API Management Stack?
SAML2 vs JWT: Understanding OAuth2
This blog post continues the SAML2 vs JWT series. In the last post, we discussed JSON Web Tokens. Now, we are going to move on to OAuth2 and OpenID Connect, which provides some structure and protocol around the use of JWT. These protocols are used, along with JWT, to build the JWT use cases this…
Azure Active Directory Setup for API Actors
This post outlines how to setup an Azure Active Directory tenant with a Pay-As-You-Go or Free subscription (which only lasts for 30 days). This post is an ancillary post that gives the AAD configuration details needed for the Apigee and Azure Active Directory Integration — A JWT Story post to…
SAML2 vs JWT: Apigee & Azure Active Directory Integration — A JWT Story
In our next SAML2 vs JWT post, we are going to use a JWT with a very simple API that is proxied through Apigee Edge Public Cloud. The JWT token will be an OAuth2 access token generated by Azure Active Directory. In the last post in this series, we explored what JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are and the…