Superpatterns

Unveiled in OpenSSO last year, virtual federation is a technique for integrating existing ('legacy') applications with federation protocols such as SAML 2.0, allowing them to interact across enterprise boundaries. Today at Sun Developer Network's identity pages, Mike Hortobagyi, a solutions architect with Brighton Consulting (and 'horto' on the #opensso IRC channel), and Marina Sum, who must be just about the hardest working writer at SDN, give an overview of virtual federation and OpenSSO's Secure Attributes Exchange (SAE) component. This is part one of a two part series based on Mike's experiences over the past few months working with a Canadian financial services provider setting up virtual federation with a series of Canadian banks, so it's the real deal!

You might also be interested to know that each Sun Developer network article now has a discussion section - I just kicked things off for Mike and Marina's article - why don't you go read the article now and let them know what YOU think?

The Sun Developer Network's Marina Sum spent some time recently talking to my fellow Federated Access Manager architect Rajeev Angal about Virtual Federation, a new feature forthcoming in Sun Federated Access Manager 8.0 (but available now, of course, in OpenSSO). Virtual Federation promises to simplify federation by allowing legacy applications to interact across enterprise boundaries via a SAML 'tunnel'.

Read the interview for an overview of Virtual Federation; this article has the gory details under the old name 'Secure Attribute Exchange'.