IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager Shines at Catalyst 2010
On July 28 at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference in San Diego, CA several federated identity vendors and third parties participated in an Open Identity interoperability event focused on the US Federal Government ICAM (Identity Credential and Access Management) requirements for federated single sign-on.
The interoperability event allowed participants to showcase their products and services ability to support US Federal Government requirements using three different technologies – SAML 2.0, OpenID and Information Cards. Both Identity Provider and Service Provider implementations were encouraged, with no formal evaluation performed or requirement for vendors to support a minimum set of capabilities. Basically we were given a sample health care scenario to follow, the requirements in the form of the ICAM, IMI and GSA specifications and left to our own devices.
That said, IBM was the only participant demonstrating both Identity Provider and Service Provider configurations across all three federated SSO technologies at the show, with the most widespread interoperability matrix among all participants. Our solution made use of the recently released Tivoli Federated Identity Manager Version 6.2.1, along with our industry leading Tivoli Access Manager. The new support delivered in TFIM 6.2.1 for OpenID 2.0 attribute exchange, PAPE and RP Discovery were all required for ICAM compliance and this was a great opportunity to showcase those features in a practical way with other vendors. TFIM’s rich configuration options for existing Information Card and SAML 2.0 features made for smooth sailing in those technologies.
There was a good deal of co-operation amongst participants at the event (as has been the case in past events I have attended) and that can only bode well for customer experiences as technology adoption in this area increases. A list of the participants is freely available on the OSIS Identity Commons website which graciously hosted the working group. Thanks also to the Burton Group (now part of Gartner) for hosting the event and fostering development and collaboration in the federation space.