Superpatterns

• OpenSSO Part of Nationwide Health Information Network CONNECT Architecture - The Smoking Monkey
  OpenSSO is now part of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) CONNECT Architecture. CONNECT implements a flexible, open-source gateway solution that enables healthcare entities – Federal agencies or private-sector health organizations or networks – to connect their existing health information systems to the NHIN.
  (tags: opensso connect nhin identity opensource health fha)
• Open your Identity to the World | www.brighttalk.com
  Great presentation (requires registration) by Fulup Ar Foll, Master Architect and CTO of Sun Microsystems' Global Software Practice, on extending identity beyond the enterprise.
  (tags: fuluparfoll identity provisioning authentication saml sun openid id-wsf oauth)

Brad Cox, a regular in the OpenSSO IRC channel just came out with a line that, I think, perfectly encapsulates the spirit of open source at Sun:

"Sun used to sell bits. Now you're selling trust. Interesting times!"

• Steve Gillmor Interviews Jonathan Schwartz
  How Sun is in a unique position to help enterprises during the downturn.
  (tags: sun humor gillmor schwartz)
• User Experience Matters--install OpenDS in 5 easy steps
  Nice to see Nick Wooler making his mark on OpenDS already - no messing! We miss you on OpenSSO, Nick!
  (tags: opends nickwooler ldap directoryserver)
• Why I like Solaris
  Neil Wilson (ex-Sun Directory Server engineer) expands on his recent quote in an Infoworld article. A really well-written, considered, detailed piece from an engineer for whom I have the utmost respect.
  (tags: linux solaris opends infoworld)

• Sun's new Access Manager is now OpenSSO Enterprise
  Felix Gaehtgens of Kuppinger Cole gives some in-depth info on OpenSSO Enterprise 8.0 (registration required).
  (tags: federation identity saml opensso accessmanager kuppingercole felixgaehtgens sun)

• A kinder, gentler federation agreement
  Via James McGovern - BPuhl, an AD engineer in Microsoft's IT department describes one federation partner's approach to information gathering
  (tags: microsoft identity federation)
• A Sun Identity Manger Resource Adapter for Google Apps
  Warren Strange has written a custom resource adapter for Sun Java System Identity Manager, using the Google Provisioning API to manage Google Apps accounts.
  (tags: identity google identitymanager sun idm provisioning resourceadapter)

Via Tatsuo Kudo - Gartner recently published their latest vendor rating for Sun. The overall picture is, well, sunny, if you'll pardon the pun, but I'm particularly pleased with their ratings in the areas of Identity and Access Management and Open Source - 'Strong Positive'^* for both, which means that OpenSSO and OpenDS must be doubly blessed

* Strong Positive: Is viewed as a provider of strategic products, services or solutions:

• Customers: Continue with planned investments.
• Potential customers: Consider this vendor a strong choice for strategic investments.

• Linux shop adds Solaris for performance boost
  Wow - "[...] it turned out that Solaris 10 had a throughput that was 50 times better."
  (tags: fedora linux solaris solaris10 sun t1000 t2000 ubuntu)
• Open Source at Sun Microsystems, 2008
  Gartner Analysis. Synopsis: Open source at Sun Microsystems is strong, and Gartner expects an increasing role for open source within its business strategies in coming years.
  (tags: analysis gartner opensource sun)
• BigAdmin Feature Article: Using Kerberos to Authenticate a Solaris 10 OS LDAP Client With Microsoft Active Directory
  This document describes configuration of a Solaris client to use Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (Active Directory) for authentication and naming services.
  (tags: ad authentication bigadmin kerberos ldap microsoft solaris solaris10 sun windows)
• XTech 2008 - BBC Tech Refresh and Identity - Brendan Quinn And Ben Smith » SlideShare
  Presentation from XTech 2008 in Dublin, about the BBC's plans to reinvigorate its technical platform and to create new user management services. Slides 38 and 39 are my favourites :-)
  (tags: bbc identity infrastructure opensso xtech)

• Seriously, deploying apps to Glassfish couldn't be easier
  Handy set of tips for autodeploy on Glassfish
  (tags: applicationserver autodeploy glassfish j2ee javaee sun java)

• The Adoption-Led Market
  Simon Phipps does a nice job of formalizing the commercial open source model as an 'adoption-led market'.
  (tags: opensource simonphipps sun)

The fabulous Bianca Botello (our Marketing Programs Manager for identity management - if you've marvelled at Sun's hospitality suites at the Burton Catalyst conference then you've seen Bianca's work) is now blogging at Identity Management Buzz. Get all the latest news on Sun's identity management user group meetings, our latest identity management podcast and even Rainn Wilson ('The Office's Dwight Schrute) hosting Saturday Night Live.

(In case you're wondering about the bag image - Bianca is a huge LV fan )

In between all the talk of federation, PHP and web services, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that bread-and-butter single sign-on and access control still has huge value in improving both security and the user experience. Over at the Sun Developer Network, Marina Sum and I just published an article - Sun and Microsoft Interoperate for Web Authentication, Part 1 - focusing on how Sun Java System Access Manager and its policy agents integrate with Microsoft IIS to provide both single sign-on and access control - right down to Windows ACLs on files on disk.

As the article mentions, some functionality (specifically, the basic authentication plugin - from the 'Configuration of the Policy Agent for HTTP Basic Authentication' heading to the end - sorry, there is no handy name anchor in there to link to) will be released in AM Policy Agent for IIS 2.2-Hotpatch6 sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post here as soon as this is available; at that point you will be able to work through the entire article. In the meantime, much of it works with the current policy agent, so you can get started straight away.

I posted an entry yesterday listing the 5 (so far!) bloggers from Access Manager engineering. I realized that there are a load more folks in Sun, but outside AM engineering, blogging about AM and OpenSSO. Here is a list that I will update as and when. There is a fuzzy boundary here - if you are in the list and you don't think you should be, then let me know. Similarly, if someone is not in the list and they should be, then let me know. Comments or email are fine. I'm including folks' functional area so that readers have some idea of what to expect from the different blogs - for instance - the field folk tend to have a wider focus than AM engineering :-)

UPDATE - all of the below blogs are aggregated at Planet OpenSSO.

Engineering

•  Rajeev Angal
•  Aravindan Ranganathan
•  Dennis Seah
•  Indira Thangasamy
•  Pat Patterson
•  Mrudul Uchil

Product Management

•  Daniel Raskin
•  Nick Wooler
•  Sidharth Mishra

Publications

•  Michael Teger
•  John Domenichini

Training

•  David Goldsmith
•  Rajesh R

CTO Office

•  Hubert Le Van Gong

'The Field'

•  Tatsuo Kudo - Japan
•  Orhan Alkan - Turkey
•  Peter Fabian - Hungary
•  Jeff Bounds - US
•  Leroy Kelley - US
•  Kimimasa Sato - Japan
•  Hai-Ning Henry Zhang - China (Beijing)
•  Shesh Kondi - US
•  Rakesh Radhakrishnan - US
•  Wilson Ku - China (Taiwan)
•  Warren Strange - Canada
•  Sébastien Stormacq - Luxembourg
•  Ashok Anumandla - US