AAA Overview

Collectively, authentication, authorization, and accounting are referred to as AAA. Each has an important but separate function.

• Authentication—Determines who the user is, then determines whether that user should be granted access to the network. The primary purpose is to prevent intruders from networks. It uses a database of users and passwords.
• Authorization—Determines what the user is allowed to do by giving network managers the ability to limit network services to different users.
• Accounting—Tracks what the user did and when they did it. You can use accounting for an audit trail or for billing for connection time or resources used.

Central management of AAA means the information is in a single, centralized, secure database, which is much easier to administer than information distributed across numerous devices.

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