Domains are containers of data sources that allow you to assign data ownership and access management to specific business units, subject matter experts, or teams at the nexus of cross-functional groups. Instead of centralizing your data governance and giving users too much governance over all your data, you control how much power they have over data sources by granting them permission within domains in Immuta.

Getting started

Create and manage a domain to determine how much power governance users have over that data.

Domains reference guide

This guide describes the design, behavior, and value of domains.

Domains are containers of data sources that allow you to assign data ownership and access management to specific business units, subject matter experts, or teams at the nexus of cross-functional groups. Instead of centralizing your data governance and giving users too much governance over all your data, you control how much power they have over data sources by granting them permission within domains in Immuta.

Create a domain

Required Immuta permission: GOVERNANCE

1. Navigate to the Domains page.

2. Click + New Domain.

3. Enter a Name and Description for your domain.

4. Click Save.

To create a domain using the API, see the Domains API guide. For more information about domains, see the Domains reference guide.

Assign domain permissions

Required Immuta permission: USER_ADMIN

User administrators can assign domain permissions from the domain permissions tab or the people page. See instructions for both methods below.

Domain permissions tab

1. Click Domains and navigate to the domain.

2. Got to the Permissions tab and click + Grant Permissions.

3. Opt to select additional domains to apply the permission assignments to.

4. Choose how to assign the permission:

   • Individual selected users: Select this option from the dropdown and then search for individual users to grant the permission to.

   • Users in group: Select this option from the dropdown and then search for groups to grant the permission to.

5. Select the Manage Policies permission to allow them to create policies that will apply to the data sources within the domain.

6. Review your changes and click Grant Permissions.

To assign permissions using the API, see the Domains API guide. For a list of permissions associated with domains, see the Domains reference guide.

People page

1. Click People in the left navigation menu and select Users or Groups.

2. Select your user or group and then click the Settings tab.

3. Click + Add Domain Permissions.

4. Select the Domain for which the user or group should have the permission.

5. Opt to select additional users or groups to grant the permission to within the selected domains.

6. Select the Manage Policies permission to allow them to create policies that will apply to the data sources within the domain.

7. Review your changes and click Grant Permissions.

Assign existing data sources to a domain

Required Immuta permission: GOVERNANCE

1. Navigate to the Domains page and select your domain.

2. Click the Data Sources tab, and then click + Add Data Sources.

3. Select the checkboxes for the data sources you want to add to your domain.

4. Click + Add to Domain.

To assign data sources using the API, see the Domains API guide. For more information about domain data sources, see the Domains reference guide.

Protect your data

Required Immuta permission: GOVERNANCE or Manage Policies

1. Navigate to the Domains page and select your domain.

2. Click the Subscription Policies or Data Policies tab.

3. Click Create Policy and select Subscription Policy or Data Policy.

4. Write your subscription policy or data policy as outlined in the policies how-to guide.

5. When building your policy, your domain should automatically be added in the What domain(s) should this policy be restricted to? section. However, you can select more domains that you have the Manage Policies permission for here as well. This step will assign the policy to all data sources added to that domain.

For more information about domain policies, see the Domains reference guide.

Delete a domain

Required Immuta permission: GOVERNANCE

1. Navigate to the Domains page and select your domain.

2. Click Remove Domain.

3. Confirm your changes.

To delete a domain using the API, see the Domains API guide.

Domains are containers of data sources that allow you to assign data ownership and access management to specific business units, subject matter experts, or teams at the nexus of cross-functional groups. Within a domain, specific users are assigned a domain permission to manage policies on the data sources in that domain, which eliminates the problem of centralizing your data governance and giving users too much power over all data in your organization. Instead, you can control how much power these governance users have over data by restricting their privileges to the domains you specify.

Once a data owner registers data as Immuta data sources, users with the GOVERNANCE permission can add data sources to domains based on business units, business goals, or policy management strategy within their organization. Then, a user with the USER_ADMIN permission can assign additional users to manage policies on data within those domains:

Domains are also integral to delegating policy management of data products within a data mesh without breaking your organization's security and compliance standards. To learn more about how you can integrate Immuta in your data mesh framework (and domains' role in that process), see the Federated governance for data mesh and self-serve data access use case guide.

Domain data sources

Data sources can be assigned to domains based on business units in your organization or any other method that suits your business goals and policy management strategy. Users with the GOVERNANCE permission can change the domain that a data source belongs to or remove a data source from a domain. Once a data source is assigned to a domain, only users with the global GOVERNANCE or domain-specific Manage Policies permission can create policies that will apply to that data source. To access data within the domain, users must meet the restrictions outlined in the policies on the data sources.

When a data source is removed from or added to a domain, Immuta recomputes the policies that apply to the domain. Any policies associated with a domain will be added to or removed from a data source when it is added to or removed from the domain.

See the Getting started with domains guide for instructions on creating a domain and adding data sources to it.

Domain policies

Whether created within or outside a domain, Immuta policies enforce access as usual: users who meet the restrictions outlined in the policy applied to a data source may access that data source. However, domains restrict who can author policies that apply to data sources assigned to that domain. This policy management restriction gives organizations more control of how much power governance users have over data. Furthermore, it can make Immuta easier to use by allowing more people to author policies.

Users with the Manage Policies permission in a domain can set global policies to apply to the domains for which they have the Manage Policies permission. In the example below, the domain policy manager can only apply global policies to the HR domain:

If that same user had the Manage Policies permission for the HR and Marketing domains, they could write global policies to apply to data sources within both of those domains. If that user had the Manage Policies permission on all domains in their organization or the GOVERNANCE permission, they could set global policies to apply to all data sources.

See the Getting started with domains guide for instructions on authoring domain policies.

Designing domain policies

When integrating domains to distribute policy management across your organization, data governance and access control must be applied horizontally (globally across data in your organization) and vertically (locally within specific domains or data products). Global policies should be authored and applied in line with your ecosystem’s most generic and all-encompassing principles, regardless of the data’s domain. For example, a global policy could be used to mask all PII data across an organization. Domain or local policies, on the other hand, should be fine-grained and applicable to only context-specific purposes or use cases. For example, a domain or local policy could be used to only show rows in the Sales table where the value in the country column matches the user's office location.

These three different policy levels are authored by separate users:

• Global policy level: Users with the GOVERNANCE permission can create global policies that apply to all data sources in an organization.

• Domain policy level: Users with the Manage Policies permission can apply policies to data sources within the domains for which they have that permission.

• Local policy level: Data owners can apply policies directly to a data source, even if a domain or global policy applies to it as well. Because they are the most knowledgeable of their data, data owners can disable and apply the most relevant policy to their data source.

Since policies apply to domain data sources at multiple levels, there are instances in which two or three policies could apply to a single domain data source. Data owners can disable and enable policies that are most appropriate for their data source when a conflict occurs. For details about policy conflicts, merges, and policy conflict management, see the following pages:

• Data policy conflicts

• Merging ABAC subscription policies

• Managing non-ABAC subscription policy conflicts

Deleting a domain

Users with the GOVERNANCE permission can delete any domain that has zero data sources assigned to it.

See the Getting started with domains guide for instructions on deleting a domain.

Migrating to domains

Existing data sources can be assigned to a domain by a user with the GOVERNANCE permission. Once added to a domain, domain policies will be enforced on the data sources.

See the Getting started with domains guide for instructions on adding existing data sources to a domain.

Permissions

The table below outlines the global Immuta permissions and domain permissions necessary to manage domains. Domain permissions can be added to users or groups by a user with the USER_ADMIN Immuta permission.