SailPoint’s Identity Security Cloud (ISC) is a modern, cloud-native identity governance and administration platform that enables organizations to secure access and manage identities across hybrid environments. ISC delivers identity lifecycle automation, access certifications, policy enforcement, risk insights, AI-powered recommendations, and more — making it a sought-after skill in IAM roles.
Whether you’re preparing for an interview as an IAM analyst, ISC consultant, or security engineer, this guide covers 25 essential questions and answers that help you confidently address key topics.
SailPoint ISC is a SaaS-based identity governance and administration platform designed to provide secure access visibility, policy enforcement, lifecycle automation, risk analytics, and certification campaigns across on-prem and cloud systems. It brings identity security into the cloud with real-time risk modeling and automation.
ISC is cloud-native and managed by SailPoint, with built-in modernization like AI and machine learning-based recommendations. IdentityIQ is an on-premises, highly customizable IGA solution. The framework is evolving, but ISC focuses on SaaS scalability and automation while IIQ focuses on extensibility and deep custom logic.
SailPoint ISC consists of multiple integrated components, including:
Together, these components ensure strong identity governance.
Access Modeling identifies relationships between users, applications, and access. It builds an understanding of what access exists, who has it, and what roles could be created to optimize permissions.
AI enhances ISC with recommendations for roles, access requests, risk detections, identity outliers, and certification insights — reducing manual effort and accelerating identity governance decisions.
Certifications are periodic reviews of user access to ensure it is still appropriate and compliant. They help enforce least-privilege and support audit requirements.
Connectors integrate ISC with target systems (such as Azure AD, AWS, Okta) to retrieve identity and access data and to manage provisioning operations. Some connectors use REST APIs.
A resource is an application or system that ISC manages — representing accounts, entitlements, and access that users can have. It’s onboarded via connectors.
Provisioning is automatically creating, updating, or deactivating user accounts and access in connected systems based on roles, policies, or events. It helps maintain correct access during onboarding/offboarding.
Role Discovery uses data and access patterns to suggest potential roles that simplify access management and enforce least-privilege across users.
ISC exposes REST APIs for automation, integration, and data retrieval — enabling customization, workflow extensions, and integrations with external systems. APIs are essential for automation and large-scale deployments.
Policies enforce rules like SoD (Segregation of Duties) or risk thresholds. When violations are detected, ISC triggers alerts and remediations to maintain security and compliance.
Certifications provide documented reviews of access, which auditors use to confirm that access is appropriate, helping organizations meet regulatory standards (e.g., SOX, GDPR).
An Access Request let users request additional privileges through a self-service portal, which then follow approval workflows and automated provisioning once approved.
Identity outliers are users whose access patterns differ significantly from peers — they may present higher risk and require additional review or remediation.
Onboarding typically involves configuring the connector, mapping schemas/attributes, defining provisioning rules, and validating data synchronization.
Risk Scores quantify the risk associated with access entitlements or user behavior — helping prioritize remediation and audit focus. ISC uses analytics and policy definitions to calculate these scores.
Troubleshooting includes reviewing task logs, connector settings, API calls, provisioning failures, compliance violations, and policy logic. Good logging and dashboards aid quick root-cause analysis.
Access Intelligence refers to dashboards and analytics that provide insights into access trends, risk, high-risk permissions, and certification data to support decision-making.
ISC supports Zero Trust by continuously validating identities and access, enforcing policies, implementing least privilege, and using analytics to detect anomalies — aligning with the “never trust, always verify” model.
Transformations and rules let you manipulate data (attributes, entitlements) during tasks, enabling customization of logic and data formats before ingestion or provisioning.
Identity lifecycle automation orchestrates user onboarding, role changes, offboarding, and entitlement updates using predefined workflows and triggers.
Role-Based Access assigns permissions based on job roles, simplifying governance. Attribute-Based Access adds conditions based on attributes (e.g., location, department) for fine-grained control. ISC supports both for dynamic access model design.
A certification campaign groups review tasks for managers/auditors to review access rights over a set period and take actions (approve, revoke, delegate) — enabling structured compliance checks.
Best practices include scoping requirements, planning connectors and workflows, defining roles/policies with least privilege, using analytics/risk scores to prioritize, and running test environments before production rollout.
Mastering these 25 questions and answers empowers you for ISC interviews by covering foundational topics, technical concepts, and real-world implementation scenarios. Remember to explain your answers with examples from projects or labs where possible — this demonstrates practical competence to interviewers.