The company said the move means users can grant, manage and revoke access to applications directly from the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) Directory Server and Sun ONE Identity Server.
Sun has been active in the area of network security for years, and lately has been advancing the Liberty Alliance protocols for network identification. Its network identity solution is based on the Sun ONE Identity Server, which is compliant with the Liberty Alliance 1.0 spec. It is said to ride on top of existing applications and does not require customers to rip and replace their authentication and application password systems. Although it runs on Sun servers, it sits alongside applications much as the Infinite Mailbox solution sits behind existing Domino/Notes setups and archives data without interfering with the operation. It is claimed that the network identity offering can span from 5,000 to 250,000 identities.
New York-based Thor was founded as the provisioning arm of MCI, and has been writing carrier-grade provision software since 1991. Last year the company had an infusion of new management and $19m in an external financing round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Its Xellerate software best suits large-scale deployments.
Both Thor and Sun support the Liberty Alliance project and other emerging standards such as those being worked on by OASIS, including provisioning standards such as the draft Service Provisioning Mark-up Language (SPML). This is an XML-based framework for exchanging information between provisioning service points. Version 1.1 of the Liberty Alliance Specification, the part that has been turned over to OASIS, has been renamed the Liberty Alliance Identity Federation Framework (ID-FF). The ID-FF outlines single sign-on and account sharing between partners using SAML for the exchange of authorization and authentication information.
Source: Computerwire
