What is IAM?
Essentially, IAM allows you to manage users and their level of access to the AWS console.
What does IAM give you?
Centralised control of your AWS account.
Shared Access of your AWS account
Granular Permissions
Identity Federation ( including Active Directory, Facebook, Linkedin etc )
Mutifactor Authentication
Provide temporary access for users/devices and services where necessary
Allows you to set up your own password rotation policy
Integrates with many different AWS services
Supports PCI DSS Compliance
Free to use
Critical Terms:
Users
Groups - A collection of users under on set of permissions.
Roles - You create roles and can then assign them to AWS resources.
Policies - A document that defines one ( or more permissions