* A look at federated directories
While we’ve seen, over the past few issues, that federated provisioning still has a long way to go there’s another technology, an older technology, which might bear another look. First, though, a correction.
A couple of weeks ago I said “…none of the organizations which provided provisioning services at the end of 2001 still exist as independent entities.” And, it appears, I misspoke. Although I didn’t notice Courion until the spring of 2002, the company actually launched Identity Management Suite, which included AccountCourier for user provisioning, in November 2001. Thanks to the always delightful Rachel Weeks for that tidbit.
Now on to that other federation technology.
Back in the 90’s, Novell developed the concept of federated directories, specifically for use with their NetWare Directory Service/Novell Directory Service (NDS) and later used with eDirectory.
Under this technology, Enterprise A’s directory appears to Enterprise B as a branch of its directory tree, while B’s directory appears (to A) as a branch under it’s tree.
In reality, both are branches of an (invisible) higher rooted tree.
Directory administrators on both sides have full control of “their” branch while delegating some options to those on the “other” side. The concept is similar to a virtual directory system, but only allowed connection between two NDS/eDirectory systems. Later, the concept of a worldwide universal tree, to which every organization could federate, was broached – but with Active Directory on the horizon, no other vendors fell in with Novell’s plan.
By the late 90’s/early 21st century, Novell was working on the concept of a personal directory, essentially a single object (you) data store, which could be federated to the Novell controlled worldwide universal tree. No one offered to play in the ballpark, either and Novell quickly lost interest.
But with a few tweaks to that technology, coupled with the Identity Governance Framework, maybe we could have another go. More about that next time.
