Single Sign-on: Separating Fact from Fiction

Quest Software is hosting a virtual trade show and the session I am doing is called "Single Sign-on: Separating Fact from Fiction". It has been recorded so if you're interested in seeing it all you have to do is click here.


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Quest Software, QSFT, single sign-on, identity management, Kerberos

ADAC & Windows Server 2008 R2

My colleague and fellow blogger, Bob Bobel, has posted about a shortcoming in the latest and greatest from Microsoft related to Microsoft Exchange integration - actually, the lack thereof. Here's a link to his post and a quote:

One glaring regression is the lack of integration with Microsoft Exchange. The former Active Directory Users and Computers UI had extensions that would expose the critical attributes necessary to perform recipient management. This was handy for many people and its absence is already being mentioned. I would guess that eventually the Microsoft Exchange team will provide this, but so far it has been a no-show.

Good to know this up-front so you're not too surprised by this fact.

Is there money in federation?

In my last post, "Microsoft on the verge", I talked about a number of things including "Geneva" or Windows Identity Foundation. One of the things that interests me about Microsoft's federation strategy is the inclusion of the foundation within Windows Server itself.

Why is this significant? Mainly because it means that federated scenarios are included in the server license so if a customer wants to federate with another organization all they have to do is set up the agreements and go from there without being concerned about additional licensing costs. As you can see from the Liberty Alliance test matrix Microsoft went through a battery of test to get their SAML 2.0 certification.

What does this all mean for Microsoft's customers? Well, it means that there may no longer be a need to purchase an actual federation solution from a 3rd party ISV. Or, as time goes on, I suspect that the inclusion of federation in the Windows platform will put significant pricing pressure on ISVs that sell federation products. ISVs will not be able to make a lot of money on pure federation solutions. However, I do believe that there are still three areas where ISVs will be able to add significant value over what Microsoft is delivering:

1. Auditing: I do not believe that Microsoft will be delivering a comprehensive audit capability around their federation components. As you can well imagine the need to audit federation or single sign-on "events" will be pretty important from a security and compliance perspective.

2. Management: By management I mean operational management of your federated relationships. How easy will setting up a federated partnership be? How easy will it be to monitor your on-going partnerships? How about troubleshooting those linkages?

3. Strong authentication: I haven't seen much discussed about enabling strong authentication of federated transactions. What if I want to use a smartcard or a one-time password (OTP) to protect my transactions?

Don't forget the basics that we have all come to rely on - or are asked to deliver by our company's management: Audit, compliance and security. They are all required - still.

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identity management, ADFS, SAML, strong authentication, security, Microsoft, MSFT, cloud computing

Microsoft on the verge?

My Google news net caught this article for me today - Microsoft wary as security, identity integration plan lags - by John Fontana that's definitely worth a read.

Microsoft is on the verge of finally providing some pieces of software to back up its ambitious plan to integrate its security and identity technologies, but the company admits it is moving slower than it had anticipated.

Progress towards this goal, as many of us have already blogged, has been slow. One glimmer of movement in the right direction was last year's merger of the security and identity teams. I also think that the upcoming "Geneva" - now Windows Identity Foundation - will be pivotal for Microsoft and the industry.

In John Fontana's article there's an interesting quote from Bob Muglia I'd like to highlight:

We (Microsoft) don't see ourselves as providing the only solution that an enterprise customer needs for security...

I think most customers would agree with this. In fact, Bob really needed to add "and identity" to that statement. Nearly every customer I meet with has multiple identity management products deployed. In fact, at one customer I recently met with they had three different self-service password reset solutions deployed. Many of the customers I meet with have also deployed Microsoft's identity lifecycle product too (MMS, MIIS or ILM). When I quiz them on what scenarios they are solving with the Microsoft product the most typical response is "GAL sync" yet the company has also deployed a non-Microsoft identity product or framework for the enterprise.

In talking with these teams I have found that in many cases the "Windows", "Active Directory" or "Microsoft" team at an enterprise holds enough power or influence to dictate what is used in their own environment but not enough power or influence at the corporate level to dictate what is used for identity management.

Bob Muglia states that he doesn't see Microsoft providing the only solution that an enterprise customer needs for security. I don't see Microsoft providing the only solution that an enterprise customer needs for identity either.

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identity management, Geneva, ForeFront, Microsoft, MSFT, Windows Identity Foundation