8.5 Conclusions

In this chapter, we addressed the notion of an AAI, and elaborated on some technologies to build and operate such an infrastructure. In addition to the technologies explained in this book, there is also work going on to have middleware provide a comprehensive set of security services. Most importantly, CORBA security is a hot topic today; you may refer to [34] for a corresponding overview and discussion from a developer s point of view. All technologies compete for market share and it is not at all clear what technology will be used in the future. What is urgently needed is more experience in practical deployment and application integration, particularly in heterogeneous environments and on a large scale. As such, the field of designing and implementing AAIs is open for further research and development.

There is some fear in the industry that Microsoft .NET Passport may be successful in providing a viable alternative to PKI-based AAIs, especially in the short term . Consequently, some competitors of Microsoft (e.g., Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, and RSA Security) have launched a Liberty Alliance Project. ^[25] The project refers to an organization that has been chartered ˜ ˜to create an open, federated, single sign-on identity solution for the digital economy via any device connected to the Internet. Membership is open to all commercial and noncommercial organizations. As of this writing, the Liberty Alliance Project has provided only some press releases. Consequently, it is to early too say whether the project will be successful, and whether its solution will provide a viable alternative to Microsoft .NET Passport. It is also possible and likely that we will see other projects and organizations be launched to compete Microsoft .NET Passport and the Liberty Alliance Project.

^[25] www.projectliberty.org