The Bedford, Massachusetts-based ISV has traditionally worked within the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, which is responsible for the development of the XML-based Security Assertions Mark-up Language, SAML. Version 2.0 of SAML, ratified by Oasis in March this year, addressed at least part of the problem of rival standards by incorporating the Identity Federation Framework, ID-FF, but that left the Microsoft camp with its Web Services-Federation approach.
Toffer Winslow, director of product management at RSA, said: Microsoft continues to do things its own way [and as a result], we think there are opportunities to be the glue between SAML 2.0 and WS-Fed.
Scenarios in which such technology would be useful include acquisitions where one company has bought into SAML and the other into WS-Fed, and companies such as banks that will need to handle federated identities from corporate customer regardless of which technology they are using.
Winslow said the translation layer will be delivered as an enhancement to RSA’s Federated Identity Manager rather than as a licensable module, and is designed to increase the appeal of FIM rather than generate revenue in its own right. Winslow said another way in which RSA intends to differentiate itself in the market is by offering a combination of federation and strong authentication to offer better security.
