The first version, SCIM 1.0, was released in 2011 by a SCIM standard working group organized under the Open Web Foundation.5 In 2011, it was transferred to the IETF, and the current standard, SCIM 2.0 was released as IETF RFC in 2015.67
SCIM 2.0 was completed in September 2015 and is published as IETF RFCs 76438 and 7644.9 A use-case document is also available as RFC 7642.10
The standard has been implemented in various IdM software.11
The standard was initially called Simple Cloud Identity Management (and is still called this in some places), but the name was officially changed to System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) when the IETF adopted it.12
Interoperability was demonstrated in October, 2011, at the Cloud Identity Summit, an IAM industry conference. There, user accounts were provisioned and de-provisioned across separate systems using SCIM standards, by a collection of IdM software vendors: Okta, CyberArk, Ping Identity, SailPoint, Technology Nexus and UnboundID. In March 2012, at IETF 83 in Paris, interoperability tests continued by the same vendors, joined by Salesforce.com, BCPSoft, WSO2, Gluu, and Courion (now SecureAuth) nine companies in total.13
SCIM is the second standard for exchanging user data, but it builds on prior standards (e.g. SPML, PortableContacts, vCards, and LDAP directory services) in an attempt to be a simpler and more widely adopted solution for cloud services providers.14
The SCIM standard is growing in popularity and has been adopted by numerous identity providers as well as applications. As adoption of the standard grows, so do the number of tools available. The standard leverages a number of open-source libraries15 to facilitate development and testing frameworks16 ensure that endpoint's compliance with the SCIM standard.
Internet Engineering Task Force, Network Working Group (May 11, 2015). System for Cross-Domain Identity Management: Core Schema. Draft 19. Retrieved 2015-05-17. http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-scim-core-schema-19 ↩
Wilson, Neil (June 22, 2011). "SCIMming along..." UnboundID blog. (link: neil-wilson). Retrieved May 11, 2015. https://www.unboundid.com/blog/2011/06/22/scimming-along ↩
Grizzle, Kelly (March 10, 2014). "SCIM: Provisioning users, killing connectors". SecureID News. SecureID. Retrieved May 17, 2015. http://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/scim-provisioning-users-killing-connectors/ ↩
"SCIM Overview". scim.cloud. Simple Cloud Identity Management. Retrieved May 17, 2015. https://scim.cloud/#overview ↩
Internet Engineering Task Force, Network Working Group (August 2, 2012). System for Cross-Domain Identity Management: Core Schema 1.1. Version 1.1. Retrieved 2015-05-11. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-scim-core-schema-01 ↩
Hunt, Phil; Grizzle, Kelly; Wahlstroem, Erik; Mortimore, Chuck (September 2015). "RFC 7643: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Core Schema". ietf.org. Internet Engineering Task Force. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7643 ↩
Hunt, Phil; Grizzle, Kelly; Ansari, Morteza; Wahlstroem, Erik; Mortimore, Chuck (September 2015). "RFC 7644: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Protocol". ietf.org. Internet Engineering Task Force. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7644 ↩
Li, Kepeng; Hunt, Phil; Khasnabish, Bhumip; Nadalin, Anthony; Zeltsan, Zachary (September 2015). "RFC 7642: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Definitions, Overview, Concepts, and Requirements". ietf.org. Internet Engineering Task Force. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7642 ↩
"Known SCIM implementations". scim.cloud. Simple Cloud Identity Management. https://scim.cloud/#implementations ↩
Hunt, Phil (February 27, 2014). "Standards Corner: SCIM and the Shifting Enterprise Identity Center of Gravity". Oracle Fusion Middleware (blog). Oracle. Retrieved May 17, 2015. https://blogs.oracle.com/fusionmiddleware/entry/standards_corner_scim_and_the ↩
"Logistics and attendee info for the March 2012 SCIM interop event". SCIM, Simple Cloud Identity Management. April 26, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2015. https://code.google.com/p/scim/wiki/FirstInteropEvent ↩
Internet Engineering Task Force, Network Working Group (September 2015). "Section 1, Introduction". System for Cross-Domain Identity Management: Core Schema. RFC7643. Retrieved 2023-05-19. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7643#section-1 ↩
"Provisioning with SCIM – design, build, and test your SCIM endpoint". 2 March 2020. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/identity-standards-blog/provisioning-with-scim-design-build-and-test-your-scim-endpoint/ba-p/1204883 ↩
"Test Your SCIM Endpoint · AzureAD/SCIMReferenceCode Wiki". GitHub. https://github.com/AzureAD/SCIMReferenceCode/wiki/Test-Your-SCIM-Endpoint ↩