‘Geneva’ Single Sign On Gets New Names

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MS_CodeNameGeneva2 New names for Microsoft codename “Geneva” have been announced at Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) “Geneva” provides companies with simplified user access and single sign-on, for on-premises and cloud-based applications in the enterprise, across organizations, and on the Web. The components facilitate collaboration, increase security and reduce cost.  Beta 2 of the components are now available for public evaluation:

  • “Geneva” Framework will become Windows Identity Foundation and provides developers pre-built .NET security logic for building claims-aware applications, enhancing either ASP.NET or WCF applications. (The framework previous code name was “Zermatt’).
  • “Geneva” Server will become Active Directory Federation Services and is a security token service (STS) for issuing and transforming claims, enabling federations, and managing user access
  • Windows CardSpace “Geneva” will become Windows Cardspace for helping users navigate access decisions and for developers to build customer authentication experiences for users.

Active Directory Federated Services augments Active Directory and installs on a domain controller or a server on the network. Companies with Active Directory can extend it to create single sign-on between local network resources and cloud services and other companies.

Windows Identity Foundation is an extension to the .Net Framework 3.5 that helps developers more easily build applications that incorporate a claims-based identity model for authentication/authorization. You can access the identity tokens.

One of the most significant additions to Geneva Beta 2 was support for the SAML 2.0 protocol. Microsoft had supported the SAML token format as part of its Identity MetaSystem, which is the foundation of the Geneva project. The platform also supports WS-Federation, WS-Trust.

For more information, see "Geneva"  Simplifies User Access to Applications and Services on MSDN. You can try the Geneva Beta 2 evaluation either as a download or as a virtual machine.  The May 2009 developer training kit preview is available, see Identity Developer Training Kit.

For an overview of the claims-based platform, see "Geneva" Claims Based Access Platform.

Also part of the identity platform is the Microsoft Service Connector, the Microsoft Federation Gateway and the .Net Access Control Service. These components create an identity backbone and connection to the cloud.

 

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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