What is the purpose of AWS IAM?

The primary purpose of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is to manage user identities and control access permissions for AWS resources. IAM allows organizations to securely manage access to AWS services and resources by defining policies that dictate who can access what resources and under what conditions. It enables the creation of users, groups, and roles, and allows for fine-grained access control through the use of permissions.

By using IAM, organizations can implement the principle of least privilege, ensuring that users only have access to the resources necessary for their roles. This enhances security and helps to protect sensitive data within an AWS environment. Additionally, IAM can be used to enforce multi-factor authentication and other security best practices, further strengthening the security posture of an organization's cloud resources.

Other options mentioned, such as network routing, data analytics, and data storage, do not align with the core functionality of IAM. AWS provides different services specifically designed for networking (such as VPC), data analytics (like AWS Athena), and storage (such as Amazon S3). IAM, however, is solely focused on identity and access management within the AWS ecosystem.