PDC LIVE : Kim Cameron Outlines Identity Vision

Kim Cameron gave a session today with some pretty big announcements around Microsoft's Identity Vision. He talked about a single open model for identity that enables user choice in the use of their identities.

As before, the Microsoft identity model is based on the shared industry vision / architecture and he unveiled a collection of modular components that customers can use together to enable user access to applications for enterprise, federation, and Web scenarios. There was a far better integration story between the Identity Meta System concept and Live IDs which was welcomed. The news was the following, based on your application type :-

For on-premises identity: A project called “Geneva” which is a claims based access platform. First the “Geneva” Framework that enables claims based access in .NET applications and the “Geneva” Server which is a Security Token Service (STS) integrated with Active Directory that comes with Windows, which enables AD to play the role of an identity provider in this architecture and makes it easy to manage multiple trust relationships between companies and the underlying policies. The architecture obviously supports Windows CardSpace.

For cloud identity: The Microsoft Federation Gateway enables use of third party identity providers for access to Microsoft and third party services built on Azure. The Microsoft Services Connector will extend use of identities from on-premises Active Directory to access Microsoft services and the .NET Access Control Service which is a A cloud STS that issues claims for access control. Both are based on “Geneva” technology and share the same claims architecture.