The Policy Decision Point (PDP) is the core process of the Identity Awareness architecture. It functions as the central "brain" or server for identity information. The PDP is responsible for communicating with various identity sources (e.g., Active Directory), creating and maintaining the identity tables that map IP addresses to users and machines, and distributing this identity data to Policy Enforcement Points (PEPs). Because it serves identity information to other gateways for policy enforcement, its role is best described as an "Identity Server." The actual daemon for this process on the Security Gateway is pdpd.

B. Captive Portal Service: This is an identity acquisition method that presents a login page to users; it is a source of information for the PDP, not the PDP itself.

C. User Auth Database: This refers to an external directory, such as Active Directory, from which the PDP retrieves user and group information. It is a data source, not the decision process.

D. Log Sifter: This is not an official Check Point term for the PDP. The process that parses Active Directory security logs is adlog, which acts as an identity source for the PDP.

1. Check Point R81.20 Identity Awareness Administration Guide, Chapter 1 "Introduction to Identity Awareness", section "Architecture".

Page 8: "The Identity Awareness Security Gateway has two main components: Policy Decision Point (PDP) and Policy Enforcement Point (PEP)."

Page 8: "The PDP is the 'brain' of the Identity Awareness configuration. The PDP handles all communication with the identity sources and is responsible for creating the identity tables (IP address, user, and machine mappings)." This description aligns the PDP's function with that of a central identity server.

2. Check Point R81.20 CLI Reference Guide, Chapter "Identity Awareness Commands", section "pdp".

Page 689: The guide details the pdp command-line utility used to monitor and manage the PDP daemon (pdpd), confirming that PDP is a distinct, server-like process responsible for managing identity state and connections.