This document discusses how Amazon Cognito can be used to manage user identities, synchronize app data across devices, and securely access AWS cloud resources from a mobile app. It describes Amazon Cognito's key capabilities such as authenticating users, authorizing access, synchronizing app state, securely storing user data and media, and sending push notifications. It also provides examples of how to use Amazon Cognito for identity management, data synchronization, and secure AWS access in a mobile app.

1. Authenticate users
Authorize access
Synchronize app state
Manage users and
identity providers
Securely access
cloud resources
Sync user prefs
across devices
Media
sharing
mobile
app
Send push notifications
Store shared data
Store media
Store user-generated photos
Media and share them
Bring users back to your app by sending
messages reliably
Store and query fast NoSQL data
across users and devices
Collect real-time clickstream logs
and take actions quickly
Stream real-time data

2. Authenticate users
Authorize access
Synchronize app state Send push notifications
Amazon Cognito
(Identity Broker)
AWS Identity and
Access Management
Amazon Cognito
(Sync) Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
Store and share media
Amazon S3
Transfer Manager
Store shared data
Amazon DynamoDB
(Object Mapper)
Stream real-time data
Amazon Kinesis
(Recorder)
Media
sharing
mobile
app

3. User identity and sync with Amazon Cognito

4. Amazon Cognito Overview
Manage authenticated
and guest users across
identity providers
Identity Management
Synchronize user’s data
across devices and
platforms via the cloud
Data Synchronization
Securely access AWS
services from mobile
devices and platforms
Secure AWS Access
Guest

5. Amazon Cognito: Use cases

6. Identity across the web and mobile

7. State transition

8. State transition

9. State transition

10. Game state

11. Amazon Cognito: Identity

12. Amazon Cognito
Identity
Providers
Unique
IdentitiesJoe Anna Bob
Any Device
Any Platform
Any AWS
Service
Helps implement security best practices
Securely access any AWS Service from mobile
device. It simplifies the interaction with AWS
Identity and Access Management
Support Multiple Login Providers
Easily integrate with major login providers for
authentication.
Unique Users vs. Devices
Manage unique identities. Automatically recognize
unique user across devices and platforms.
Mobile
Analytics
S3 DynamoDB Kinesis

13. Amazon Cognito unauthenticated
Unique Identifier for Your “Things”
“Headless” connected devices can also securely
access cloud services.
Save Data to the Cloud
Save app and device data to the cloud and merge
them after login
Guest User Access
Securely access AWS resources and leverage app
features without the need to create an account or
logging in
Visitor
Preferences
Cognito
Store
Guest
EC2 S3 DynamoDB Kinesis

14. Amazon Cognito Authenticated Flow

15. Developer Authenticated Identities – Support Any Login

16. Amazon Cognito: Security best practices

17. Amazon Cognito Security
Set granular access permissions on AWS resources
Get fine-grained access control to cloud resources.
Safeguard AWS Credentials
No need to embed credentials in the app anymore.
Get least-privileged temporary credentials.
Helps implement security best practices
Securely access any AWS Service. It simplifies the
interaction with Security Token Service and removes
the need of Token Vending Machine
EC2 S3 DynamoDB Kinesis

18. Amazon Cognito: Cloud sync

19. What have customers told us about “Synchronized
Profile”
People have multiple devices and want to transition between devices.
Implementing a user profile that syncs across devices, OS, apps is hard.
It not only has to work when offline, but easy to integrate with existing apps.

20. Amazon Cognito Sync Features
• Store App Data, Preferences and State
Save app and user data to the cloud
• Work Offline
Data persisted to local storage first. Local data is
available regardless of connectivity
• No Backend
Simple client SDK eliminates need for server side
code
User
Data
Identity Pool

21. Sync Data Model
• Identity Pool: Pool of app users. Can be
shared across apps.
• Identity: An individual user. Consistent
across identity providers. Can be a guest
user.
• Dataset: Per user grouping of data. The
most granular level of sync. Up to 1MB.
• Record: Key/Value pair user data
AWS Account
Dataset
Identity
IdentityIdentity
Dataset
Dataset
Identity
Pool
1:60
1:n
1:20
Dataset
Dataset
Record
1:1024

22. Let’s build our app
2. Identity with Amazon Cognito

23. Amazon Cognito Security Architecture
End Users
App with
AWS Mobile
SDK
Access
to AWS
Services
Login OAUTH/OpenID
Access Token
Cognito ID,
Temp
Credentials
Access
Token
Pool ID
Role ARNs
Cognito ID
(Temp
Credentials)
DynamoDB
Developer
Cognito Identity
S3
Mobile Analytics
Cognito Sync
Store
AWS
Management
Console

28. Create an unauthenticated identity
AWSCognitoCredentialsProvider *credentialsProvider =
[AWSCognitoCredentialsProvider credentialsWithRegionType:AWSRegionUSEast1
accountId:@"AWS_ACCOUNT_ID"
identityPoolId:@"COGNITO_IDENTITY_POOL"
unauthRoleArn:@"arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/UNAUTHENTICATED_ROLE"
authRoleArn:@"arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/AUTHENTICATED_ROLE"];
AWSServiceConfiguration *configuration = [AWSServiceConfiguration
configurationWithRegion:AWSRegionUSEast1
credentialsProvider:credentialsProvider];
[AWSServiceManager defaultServiceManager].defaultServiceConfiguration = configuration;

29. Link a social profile, authenticated identities
NSString *token = FBSession.activeSession.accessTokenData.accessToken;
credentialsProvider.logins = @{ @(AWSCognitoLoginProviderKeyFacebook): token };
• Logins is a Map
• Can contain tokens from all supported providers
• Amazon
• Facebook
• Google
• Your own identity system

30. Identity state changes
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:@selector(identityIdDidChange:)
name:AWSCognitoIdentityIdChangedNotification
object:nil];
-(void)identityDidChange:(NSNotification*)notification {
NSDictionary *userInfo = notification.userInfo;
NSLog(@"identity changed from %@ to %@",
[userInfo objectForKey: AWSCognitoNotificationPreviousId],
[userInfo objectForKey: AWSCognitoNotificationNewId]);
}

31. Let’s build our app
3. Synchronize app state

32. Save and sync preferences and state
// Create sync client and open dataset
AWSCognito *syncClient = [AWSCognito defaultCognito];
AWSCognitoDataset *dataset = [syncClient openOrCreateDataset:@”mediashare"];
// Save the current state of the application
[dataset setString:self.currentPhotoName forKey:@”latest_photo"];
[dataset synchronize];