Amazon Cognito enables you to secure your mobile and web applications by providing a comprehensive identity solution for end user management, registration, sign-in, and security. In this product deep dive, we will walk through Cognito’s feature set, which includes serverless flows for user management and sign-in, a fully managed user directory, and control for user permissions. In addition, we will cover key use cases and discuss the associated benefits. Learning Objectives: 1. Understand Cognito’s comprehensive feature set and benefits 2. Learn how to use Cognito to address different needs for user management and authorization 3. See how to get started and learn more

1. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Tim Hunt, Sr. Product Manager – Amazon Cognito
March 30, 2017
Deep Dive on Amazon Cognito

2. Topics
 AWS Mobile Services and Amazon Cognito
 Introduction to Amazon Cognito Identity
 Summary of Features
 Demo
 Deeper Dive in a Few Areas
 Getting Started
 Q & A

3. The Best Mobile Apps Run on AWS

4. Authenticate users
Analyze User Behavior
Store and share media
Synchronize data
Deliver media
Amazon Cognito
(Sync)
Amazon Cognito
(Identity)
Amazon S3
Amazon CloudFront
Store data
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon RDS
Run Targeted Campaigns
Send push notifications
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
Server-side logic
Lambda
Device Farm
Test your app
Build and Scale Your Apps on AWS
Amazon Pinpoint
Amazon Pinpoint

5. AWS Mobile Hub: Fastest Way to Build Apps on AWS

6. Identity is mission critical for applications
Authentication User ManagementAuthorization
 Manage user lifecycles
 Store and manage
user profile data
 Monitor engagement
 Protect data and
operations
 Provide fine-grained
access control
 Sign in users
 Enable federation with
enterprise identities
 Enable federation with
social identities
User Identity

7. Developing Auth Infrastructure is Difficult
• Need to develop a reliable user directory to manage identities
• Handling user data and passwords and protecting privacy
• Prioritizing scalability of your infrastructure upfront
• Implementing token-based authentication
• Support for multiple social identity providers
• Federation with corporate directories for B2E applications
1
2
3
5
6
4

8. Amazon Cognito Identity
Facebook
Corporate
OIDC
Sign in with
Your User Pools
You can easily and securely add sign-up
and sign-in functionality to your mobile and
web apps with a fully-managed service that
scales to support 100s of millions of users.
Federated Identities
Your users can sign in with third-party
identity providers, such as Facebook and
SAML providers, and you can control
access to AWS resources from your app.
SAML
Sign in
Username
Password
Submit

9. Using Cognito User and Federated Identities
Cognito User
Identities
(Your User Pool)
User
Sign-in
1a
Returns Access
and ID Tokens
2a
Cognito Federated
Identities
(Identity Pool)
Get AWS scoped
credentials
3
Access
to AWS Services
4
DynamoDBS3 API Gateway
SAML
Identity Provider
Example: Active
Directory with ADFS
1bSign-in
2b
Returns
Tokens

10. Amazon Cognito: Identity Management Scenarios
Business to Consumer
IoT Scenarios
Business to Employee
SAML
Federation
Enterprise
Directory
Partner A
Partner B
Business to Business
AWS IoT
API Gateway with Lambda
Deny
Allow
Custom
Authorizer
Access control for AWS
Resources
AWS IAM
Lambda
Cognito Cognito
Cognito
Cognito
Cognito Cognito
API
Gateway S3
DynamoDB

11. Your User Pools
Add user sign-up and sign-
in easily to your mobile and
web apps without worrying
about server infrastructure
Serverless Authentication
and User Management
Verify phone numbers and
email addresses and offer
multi-factor authentication
Enhanced Security
Features
Launch a simple, secure,
low-cost, and fully managed
service to create and
maintain a user directory
that scales to 100s of
millions of users
Managed User Directory
1 2 3

12. Comprehensive User Flows
Email or Phone
Number Verification
Forgot Password
User Sign-Up and
Sign-In
Require users to verify their email address or phone number prior to activating
their account with a one-time password challenge
Provide users the ability to change their password when they forget it with a one-
time password challenge
Allow users to sign up and sign in using an email, phone number, or username
(and password) for your application.
User Profile Data Enable users to view and update their profile data – including custom attributes
SMS Multifactor
Authentication
Require users to complete a second factor of authentication by inputting a
security code received via SMS as part of the sign-in flow
Customize these User Flows Using Lambda
Token Based
Authentication
Use JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) based on OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth
2.0 standards for user authentication in your backend

13. Custom User Flows Using Lambda Hooks
13
Category Lambda Hook Example Scenarios
Custom
Authentication
Flow
Define Auth Challenge Determines the next challenge in a custom auth flow
Create Auth Challenge Creates a challenge in a custom auth flow
Verify Auth Challenge Response Determines if a response is correct in a custom auth flow
Authentication
Events
Pre Authentication Custom validation to accept or deny the sign-in request
Post Authentication Event logging for custom analytics
Sign-Up
Pre Sign-up Custom validation to accept or deny the sign-up request
Post Confirmation Custom welcome messages or event logging for custom analytics
Messages Custom Message Advanced customization and localization of messages

14. Extensive Admin Capabilities
Define Custom
Attributes
Set per-App
Permissions
Set up Password
Policies
Create and manage
User Pools
Define custom attributes for your user profiles
Set read and write permissions for each user attribute on a per-app basis
Enforce password policies like minimum length and requirement of certain
types of characters
Create, configure, and delete multiple user pools across AWS regions
Require Submission of
Attribute Data
Select which attributes must be provided by the user prior to completion of
the sign-up process
Search Users
Search users based on a full match or a prefix match of their attributes
through the console or Admin API
Manage Users
Conduct admin actions, such as reset user password, confirm user, enable
MFA, delete user, and global sign-out

15. Groups
Cognito User Pools
Groups and Multiple Authenticated Roles
Group A
IAM Role A
Group B
IAM Role B
…
Authenticated
User Identity
Get
Credentials
Multiple Roles for Authenticated Identities
Cognito Federated Identities
IAM Role and Policy
IAM Role and Policy
IAM Role and Policy
Backend
Resources
MaptodifferentIAMroles
API Gateway
DynamoDB
S3
ControlAccess

16. Your User Pools and Amazon API Gateway
Native Support Custom Authorizer Function
Control access to your APIs using bearer
token authentication strategies, such as
OAuth or SAML – API Gateway’s custom
authorizer feature uses bearer tokens to
determine access privileges
Configure API Gateway to accept ID tokens
to authorize users based on their existence
in a user pool – User Pools works together
with API Gateway to authorize API requests
1 2

17. Control Attribute Permissions
Choose which user attributes
each app can read and write
Read Write
name
phone
custom:paid

18. Creating Users as an Administrator
 Developers or administrators can create users in a user pool and
send them an optional, customizable invitation email or SMS message
 New users sign in with a temporary password and create a new
password
 User pools can be configured to only allow users created by an
administrator

19. Additional User Pool Features
 Customizable email addresses – Customize the "from" email address of
emails you send to users in a user pool.
 Admin sign-in – Your app can sign in users from back-end servers or
Lambda functions.
 Global sign-out – Allow a user to sign out from all signed-in devices or
browsers.
 Custom expiration period – Set an expiration period for refresh tokens.

20. Importing Existing Users
Batch Imports
 Import users by uploading .csv files
 Users will create a new password when they first sign-in
 Each imported user must have an email address or a
phone number
One-at-a-Time Migration
 Migrate users individually as they sign in
 App first tries to sign in via Cognito, if user does not
exist, app signs in via prior identity system, captures
username and password, and silently creates user in
Cognito
 Retains passwords, but requires app coding and
maintenance of prior system for some period
Prior
IdP

21. “Building an AWS serverless platform that manages sensitive
customer data requires an authentication strategy that protects
the information from unauthorized access. Using the Amazon
Cognito user pool feature together with AWS Lambda, we’re
developing a flexible, fully integrated solution that can scale
effortlessly – a powerful tool that will be critical in keeping our
customers’ data secure.”
Feedback from our beta customers
21
“It is critical for us to provide a secure and simple sign-up
and sign-in experience for our tens of millions of end
users. With Amazon Cognito, we can enable that without
having to worry about building and managing any backend
infrastructure.”

22. Demo

23. Demo URL
The GitHub repository for the serverless authentication
sample app is available at
github.com/awslabs/aws-serverless-auth-reference-app
See the Quickstart.md file for a guide to setting up and
exploring the app
(We will show that URL again later in the presentation)

24. Understanding User Status
 New users start with
“Registered” status
 Users must be
confirmed before
they can sign-in
 Users must be
disabled before they
can be deleted
Registered
(cannot sign in)
Sign-up
Confirmed
Disabled
Admin
Confirm
Confirm via
email/phone
or
Disable
Delete
(deleted)
Lambda Trigger:
Pre Sign-up Reset Required
User import
Force Change
Password
Admin Create User
Reset password
Enable

25. Verifying Email and Phone
 Your User Pools provide built-in verification of email
addresses and phone numbers
 A six digit code is sent as an email message or SMS
text and is submitted via the VerifyUserAttribute
API
 If both a phone number and email address are
provided at sign-up, a verification code will only be
sent to the phone
 Your app can call GetUser to see if an email address
or phone number is awaiting verification, and then call
GetUserAttributeVerificationCode to initiate
the verification
Your verification
code is 938764

26. Using Aliases in Amazon Cognito User Pools
 Sign-up and sign-in with email is very common
today
 Aliases in Amazon Cognito support use of email,
phone or preferred user name in place of the
user name
 A username value must be provided at sign-up,
but it could be generated by the app and not
exposed to the end user
 Phone numbers and email addresses must be
unique and must be verified before they can be
used to sign-in
My App
Email
Password
Sign In
Sign Up

27. Getting Started with Your User Pools
See aws.amazon.com/cognito/dev-resources/ for links to
 Getting Started Guides
 Documentation, SDKs, and Sample Apps
 Videos
 Presentation Slides
 Blog Posts
 Developer Forums

28. Q & A
 Visit aws.amazon.com/cognito/ to learn more
 Find resources at aws.amazon.com/cognito/dev-resources/
 Explore the sample app at github.com/awslabs/aws-serverless-auth-
reference-app
 Ask questions at the AWS Developer Forum or Stack Overflow
(‘amazon-cognito’ tag)

29. Appendix

30. Amazon Cognito: Comprehensive Support for
Identity Use Cases

31. Pricing for Amazon Cognito User Pools
 Pricing is based on Monthly Active Users (MAUs) with volume-based discounting
o A user is counted as a MAU if there is an identity operation related to that user within a
calendar month (e.g., sign-up, sign-in, token refresh, or password change)
o No charge for subsequent sessions or for inactive users
 SMS charges are billed separately (using the SNS Global SMS feature)
Pricing Tier Price per 1K MAUs
First 50,000 MAUs Free
Next 50,000 MAUs $5.50
Next 900,000 MAUs $4.60
Next 9,000,000 MAUs $3.25
>10,000,000 MAUs $2.50

32. Amazon Cognito Sync
User Data
Storage and
Sync
Any Platform
iOS/Android/FireOS
Store app data, preferences, and state
Save app and device data to the cloud and merge
them after login
Cross-device / Cross-OS Sync
Sync user data and preferences across devices
with a few lines of code
Work offline
Data always stored in local SQLite DB first
Works seamlessly with intermittent or no
connectivity
k/v data
Identity pool
No back end
Simple client SDK eliminates need for server
side code
© 2015 Amazon Web Services, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

33. Cognito Sync Push Synchronization
 Sync between devices in near real-time
using push instead of polling
 Fewer syncs = cost savings
 Powered by SNS
 Push changes from your backend

34. Cognito Sync Streams
 Enables deeper analysis of data
 Receive a stream of any updates to a dataset for each identity in
your identity pool
 Publishes updates to Kinesis
 From Kinesis write to other destinations such as Redshift or
ElasticSearch
RedShift
ElasticSearch
KinesisCognito

35. Cognito Sync Events
 Can be used to provide data validation (Cheating, Sanitization)
 Can be used to inject data (Bonuses, Content)
 Perform additional logic server side during a synchronize call
 Full control over dataset contents
LambdaCognito