Marcel de Koster

TechEd 2008: Claim-based Identity: "Geneva"

I have visit two sessions about “Geneva”. One done by David Chappell and one by Vittorio Bertocci.

Geneva (previously “Zermatt”) is the claim-based identity platform Microsoft is working on. In a claimed-based platform, you need 3 things:

1. A Security Token Service (STS) that provides tokens (with claims). Read here about tokens and claims.
2. An identity library
3. An identity selector

Microsoft provides us with “Geneva” server (STS), “Geneva” framework (identity library) and “Geneva” Cardspace (identity selector). The best thing is that the platform supports open standards WS-Trust and SAML (2.0). This is great news, because with support for these open standards, it is possible to use a STS or a card selector from other vendors. Your are not tied-up to Microsoft.

After the sessions, the first thing I got in my mind was the for companies implementation in I did 3 years ago. DigiD is a sort of STS of the Dutch government. But … it only provides an authentication service (there are no any other claims possible). After authentication the application get a KvK-number (KvK = Chamber Of Commerce). And there we have the problem with DigiD. You have to implement additional stuff for Authorization and/or other claims.

Hopefully they (the DigiD organization) will look at the SAML and WS-Trust open standards and upgrade their system to make more claims possible. If they do, I believe the DigiD platform will be more successful.