 |
|
DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 14, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 28
|
Breaking News -
Security:
WS-Federation: The Next Step Or
The Next Stumble?
Big news for security, or just another rung on the ladder? This is the
question that networking security experts are asking themselves withe the
recent publication of WS-Federation by BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, RSA
Security and VeriSign. WS-Federation is a series of Web Services
specifications that these five companies hope will become a standard for the
inclusion of security capabilities for future Web services.
The draw for WS-Federation is the way the specifications will allow for
companies using disparate and heterogeneous networks to communicate securely
amongst eachother. With visions of Grid computing driving a possible future of
ubiquitously wired information environments, establishing trust relationships
over varied security solutions has been a hot topic recently.
The release of WS-Federation comes out of the Microsoft/IBM joint roadmap
entitled "Security in a Web Services World," released in April of last year.
The roadmap illustrated a broader series of specifications that includes
WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-Trust and WS-SecureConversation. This series of
specifications hopes to build an overarching security model for Web
serices.
But while the vendors are working hard to hype the importance of the
WS-Federation spec release, there are rumblings of dissent among some industry
players. There is a sense among some people within the community that
WS-Federation is a fix to a problem down the road, but not pertinent to
today's problems. Instead of focusing on fixing a problem that doesn't yet
exist, some say, Microsoft and partners would better serve their customers by
not avoiding the issues and instead supplying practical and timely solutions.
As WS-Federation ramps up, though, only the level of adoption can illustrate
its actual success.
|