RSA launches ID manager

RSA Security Inc. has introduced a standalone enterprise solution that will allow organizations to exchange trusted identities among various business units as well as outside contacts and trading partners.

Government agencies can use RSA's Federated Identity Manager to start federating identities, according to Howard Ting, an RSA senior product manager.

As long as other Web sites use several of the standard protocols that the RSA product supports, such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), then they'll be able to securely swap identities, he said.

Identity federation is a key part of an identity management strategy. It allows organizations to prove individuals' identities to each other in the same way that passports are used by people to move across countries' borders.

The RSA product comes with a suite of management tools that allows enterprise information technology managers to quickly build and implement federated identity relationships. Once installed, it will interact directly with applications and other identity and access management products that use the same protocols.

RSA's Federated Identity Manager has already been approved for use by federal agencies in implementing the government's E-Authentication Initiative. Other products on the list include Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Select Access, Oblix Inc.'s ShareID and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Sun Java System Identity (see www.cio.gov/eauthentication/documents/ApprovedProviders.htm)

All of these systems have been tested to demonstrate basic interoperability with each other using the SAML 1.0 profile.

Robinson is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. He can be reached at hullite@mindspring.com.