Selecting an authentication flow

Within the context of Cloud API, an auth flow is a flow of authentication and authorization information for a particular type of caller. Cloud API supports multiple auth flows. This topic identifies the issues to consider when choosing an auth flow for a particular caller application.

The most important issues to consider are as follows:

• What OAuth flow must the caller application use?
• What user is attached to the session?
• Where are authorization values stored?
• Who enforces resource access?
• What values are used as resource access IDs?

This topic assumes you are familiar with the Cloud API authentication architecture and the meaning of the terms endpoint access, resource access, and proxy user access. For more information, see Overview of authentication.