Authorization Landscape Visualization

Once discovery completes, Authonomy provides powerful visualization tools to help you understand your authorization landscape. These interactive maps and analytics turn complex authorization relationships into clear, actionable insights.

Interactive Authorization Map

🗺️ System Topology View

Visual representation of how authorization flows through your infrastructure:

┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│   Okta      │────│  Web App     │────│ Database    │
│ (Identity)  │    │ (RBAC Roles) │    │ (Row ACLs)  │
└─────────────┘    └──────────────┘    └─────────────┘
       │                   │                   │
       │           ┌───────────────┐          │
       └───────────│ Legacy System │──────────┘
                   │ (Hardcoded)   │
                   └───────────────┘

Interactive elements include:

• Hover details: See authorization models and complexity scores
• Flow tracing: Follow permission grants through system boundaries
• Risk highlighting: Color-coded security gaps and vulnerabilities
• Dependency mapping: Understand system interdependencies

👥 User Journey Visualization

See how different user types flow through your authorization systems:

• Customer admins: What systems can they access?
• End users: Where do permissions come from?
• Internal staff: How do role changes propagate?
• Service accounts: What automated access exists?

Analytics Dashboard

📊 Authorization Metrics

Key performance indicators for your authorization infrastructure:

• Permission distribution: How permissions are spread across users and systems
• Role utilization: Which roles are actually used vs. defined
• Access patterns: When and how often permissions are checked
• Policy violations: Attempted unauthorized access attempts

🔍 Security Posture Analysis

Comprehensive security assessment with actionable insights:

Security Score: 72/100

Strengths:
  ✅ Strong identity provider integration
  ✅ Regular access reviews in HR system
  ✅ Audit logging enabled

Areas for Improvement:
  ⚠️  Legacy system has admin backdoors
  ⚠️  No fine-grained permissions in billing system  
  ⚠️  Orphaned accounts in legacy database

Critical Issues:
  🚨 Shared service accounts with broad permissions
  🚨 No authorization in legacy reporting system

📈 Migration Progress Tracking

Real-time visibility into your migration progress:

• Systems migrated: Track completion by system and user group
• Policy coverage: Percentage of access decisions under FGA control
• Performance impact: Authorization decision latency and throughput
• Error rates: Authorization failures and policy conflicts

Advanced Visualization Features

🔄 Policy Dependency Graph

Understand how policies relate to each other:

• Policy inheritance: Which policies derive from others
• Conflict detection: Overlapping or contradictory policies
• Impact analysis: What happens if you change a policy
• Coverage gaps: Areas without explicit policy coverage

🎯 Risk Heat Maps

Visual representation of authorization risks across your infrastructure:

• High-privilege concentrations: Users or systems with excessive access
• Stale permissions: Unused or outdated access grants
• Compliance gaps: Areas not meeting regulatory requirements
• Attack surface: Potential authorization vulnerabilities

📋 Compliance Views

Specialized visualizations for regulatory requirements:

• SOX compliance: Financial system access controls
• HIPAA compliance: Healthcare data protection
• PCI DSS: Payment card data access
• GDPR: Personal data access and consent

Interactive Analysis Tools

🕵️ Permission Pathfinding

Trace how a user gains access to specific resources:

1. Select user: Pick any user in your system
2. Select resource: Choose the data or system they’re accessing
3. See the path: Understand every step in the authorization chain
4. Identify bottlenecks: Find single points of failure or overly broad permissions

🔍 What-If Analysis

Model authorization changes before implementing them:

• Role modifications: See impact of changing role permissions
• Policy updates: Understand which users would be affected
• System changes: Model authorization impact of infrastructure changes
• Compliance scenarios: Test regulatory requirement implementations

Sharing & Collaboration

👥 Team Views

Different stakeholders need different perspectives:

• Security teams: Risk assessment and compliance status
• Application teams: System-specific authorization details
• Executive leadership: High-level migration progress and ROI
• Audit teams: Compliance evidence and access trails

📤 Export & Reporting

Generate reports for stakeholders:

• Executive summaries: High-level migration benefits and progress
• Technical assessments: Detailed implementation requirements
• Compliance reports: Evidence for auditors and regulators
• API access: Integrate visualization data with other tools

Using Visualization for Migration Planning

🎯 Identify Quick Wins

Use the landscape view to find:

• Simple systems: Low complexity scores for fast migration
• High-impact systems: Critical systems that provide maximum benefit
• Isolated systems: Applications with minimal dependencies

🚧 Spot Migration Blockers

Visual indicators help identify potential issues:

• Circular dependencies: Systems that reference each other
• Legacy integrations: Hardcoded connections that need updates
• Custom authorization: Unique business logic requiring special handling

📅 Plan Migration Sequence

Use dependency analysis to determine optimal migration order:

1. Foundation systems: Identity providers and core authentication
2. Leaf systems: Applications with minimal dependencies
3. Integration layers: Middleware and API gateways
4. Core systems: Critical applications with many dependencies

Real-World Example

Consider a typical e-commerce platform visualization:

Authorization Landscape: E-commerce Platform
├── Identity Layer
│   ├── Okta (SSO) - 2,500 users
│   └── Legacy LDAP - 150 admin users
├── Application Layer  
│   ├── Web Frontend (React) - Cookie-based auth
│   ├── Mobile API (Node.js) - JWT tokens
│   ├── Admin Panel (Django) - Role-based permissions
│   └── Legacy Billing (Java) - Hardcoded user list
└── Data Layer
    ├── User Database (PostgreSQL) - Row-level security
    ├── Product Catalog (MongoDB) - Collection-level access
    └── Analytics DB (Snowflake) - Warehouse permissions

Migration Complexity Analysis:
🟢 Web Frontend: Low (3/10) - Simple role checks
🟡 Admin Panel: Medium (6/10) - Complex role hierarchy  
🔴 Legacy Billing: High (9/10) - Hardcoded permissions, no API

This visualization immediately shows:

• Quick wins: Start with the Web Frontend
• Medium effort: Admin Panel needs careful policy modeling
• Major project: Legacy Billing requires significant planning

Best Practices

🔄 Regular Updates

• Run discovery scans weekly during active development
• Full landscape analysis monthly for stable environments
• Immediate scans after major system changes

👥 Cross-Team Review

• Include security, development, and operations teams in landscape reviews
• Use visualization sessions to build shared understanding
• Document business context that automated discovery can’t capture

📝 Document Exceptions

• Note any authorization logic that isn’t captured automatically
• Document business rules and compliance requirements
• Record stakeholder concerns and migration constraints

Next Steps

With a clear view of your authorization landscape, you’re ready to begin Policy Translation & Modeling to design your modern FGA policies.

Need help interpreting your authorization landscape? Schedule a consultation with our migration specialists.