RSA - Eclipse, Novell near 'Big Bang' for identity

29.01.2007
Two open-source identity management projects said on Monday that they had achieved a key milestone in the development of open-source identity services that connect products regardless of maker or platform.

Developers from Novell's Bandit open-source project and Higgins, part of the Eclipse Project, said a new "reference application" created by the two groups is a working example of open-source identity services that interoperate with Microsoft's Windows CardSpace identity management system and Novell's Access Manager, which uses identity federation based on specifications from the Liberty Alliance. The application shows that it is possible to link different identity systems using open-source components, according to Dale Olds, project manager for Bandit at Novell.

The integration, which has been under development for over a year, will be on display next week at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. Part of the demonstration will show how companies can integrate a non-Liberty Alliance identity system and a Liberty Alliance-based federated identity system provided by Novell Access Manager. In particular, the demonstration will have Novell Access Manager authenticate a user via Microsoft's CardSpace using information from an external identity system. In the demonstration, users will be able to access a sample media Wiki and blog using the technology, Olds said.

The vendors involved in the integration are working to realize a common vision of seamless identity layers that can be accessed from systems running on Apple OS, Microsoft Windows, or Linux, using a variety of protocols from the Liberty Alliance, OpenID, OASIS, or other groups.

"That's the Big Bang. An identity metasystem, and we're making tangible progress toward that vision," Olds said.

In contrast to current systems for linking identity systems, the technology on display at RSA will also be more "user-centric," by virtue of integration with Microsoft's CardSpace, Olds said. "The user will have a meaningful and convenient access to identity information, and it will be clear to them when it's being released," he said.