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May 23, 2007
Microsoft Focuses on Interoperability for the Identity Metasystem
REDMOND,
Wash. — May 23, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today
announced a series of offerings that foster improved interoperability
for online identity management. Microsoft has been a leading
industry voice in the creation of an identity metasystem,
an ecosystem designed to enable the exchange of personal
identity information on the Internet so all parties may
understand whom they are working with online. Three core
elements make up the identity metasystem: the people who
are presenting their identity, the Web site or online
service requesting proof of identity, and the identity providers
who assert some information about those people. The projects
announced today improve interoperability for each of the three
identity metasystem components and represent the next step in
Microsoft’s commitment to deliver interoperability by design.
“Our customers expect
us to enable interoperability between Microsoft-based solutions, as well
as across other platforms and technologies. For this reason,
we take a very pragmatic, customer-centric view of interoperability,”
said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server
and Tools Business at Microsoft. “Addressing the effective exchange
of identity information is a perfect example of how
we look at interoperability holistically in order to meet
a critical customer need.”
Another Interop Specification Available Under Microsoft’s
OSP
In September 2006 Microsoft announced the availability of 38
Web services specifications under the Open Specification Promise (OSP).
A subset of those specifications, such as WS-Trust and
WS-SecureConversation, addressed identity metasystem scenarios and have led to
interoperable identity solutions such as Novell Inc.’s Bandit project
and the Eclipse Foundation’s Higgins Trust Framework Project. Microsoft
is now making the Identity Selector Interoperability Profile available
under the OSP to enhance interoperability in the identity
metasystem for client computers using any platform. An individual
open source software developer or a commercial software developer
can build its identity selector software and pay no
licensing fees to Microsoft, nor will it need to
worry about future patent concerns related to the covered
specifications for that technology.
Microsoft Creates Four Open Source Projects
to Help Make Web Sites Identity-Aware
Microsoft is starting
four open source projects that will help Web developers
support information cards, the primary mechanism for representing user
identities in the identity metasystem. These projects will implement
software for specifying the Web site’s security policy and
accepting information cards in Java for Sun Java System
Web Servers or Apache Tomcat or IBM’s WebSphere Application
Server, Ruby on Rails, and PHP for the Apache
Web server. An additional project will implement a C
Library that may be used generically for any Web
site or service. These implementations will complement the existing
ability to support information cards on the Microsoft® Windows®
platform using the Microsoft Visual Studio® development environment.
The projects
will be hosted on the open source project sites
http://informationcard.sourceforge.net and http://rubyforge.org/projects/informationcard, and will be aggregated for ease
of use for all developers to access at http://www.codeplex.com/informationcardjava
and http://www.codeplex.com/informationcardruby.
Microsoft Extends Identity Management in the Enterprise
Identity providers (e.g., insurance companies, government agencies, academic institutions,
or any organization that holds identity information about people)
typically have a rich set of identity information stored
in directories or databases. Some Microsoft customers have asked
for improved ability to synchronize identity information between Active
Directory® and the OpenLDAP Directory utilizing Microsoft Identity Lifecycle
Manager (ILM) 2007. In response, Microsoft announces its collaboration
on an open source project with KERNEL Networks and
Oxford Computer Group to provide an OpenLDAP adapter for
Microsoft ILM 2007. The adapter will extend ILM 2007’s
support for heterogeneous environments by enabling efficient two-way synchronization
of identity information for OpenLDAP. This adds to ILM
2007’s already significant out-of-the-box connectivity to more than 30
directories, databases and other systems. The benefit to Microsoft
customers is a more extensible and flexible identity management
solution.
Interoperability by Design
In the past 12 months, Microsoft has
announced more than 15 technical and business activities, each
furthering its commitment to deliver interoperability by design. The
company takes a holistic approach to interoperability that encompasses
products; communities of customers, partners, and competitors; access to
intellectual property; and the support of standards. Examples of
Microsoft’s improvements to interoperability include the creation of an
Open XML Translator for document format interoperability; collaboration with
companies such as Novell and XenSource Inc. on virtualization
of Linux and Windows; the creation of an Interoperability
Vendor Alliance with more than 35 other companies; and
a yearlong effort of working with the newly developed
Interoperability Executive Customer Council. More information about Microsoft’s interoperability
by design efforts can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/interop.
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