Remember the 90s, when everyone was in search of the next killer app? Whatever happened to that? I guess it got replaced with lots of little microservices, all mashed up together; well anyhow I just found one- PingConnect is game changer - sign on to Google Apps, Salesforce, Cisco Webex, Rearden, and a number of other SaaS vendors. Check the demo video and the data sheet. Given this level of integration, PingConnect lets us realize the promise of SAML and enables companies to get the benefits of SaaS and cloud.
I quite like Hoff and CSO Andy's A6 model which proposes a Security API for the cloud. One of the things I like about it is that the A6 model has identity as a first class citizen for security architecture in the Cloud. This avoids a trap that many security and application models fall into, thinking that identity can be dealt with later or even worse that our current username/password identity super soaker model (accounts/identity/secrets sprayed ever) can be reused again. The above diagram would feature a minimum of eight accounts and eight passwords, and likely much more to accomplish routine tasks. Does this seem like a scalable model to you? Does this seem like a good model to foster going forward?
To me, it seems like one that's more than ready to consign to the dustbins of history. Hey kids, gather around and let Grandpa tell you about the days when he had to sign on to eight systems with eight different passwords...
If we are going to get the benefits of the cloud we need to think different about identity, before you think you have a Cloud you better think about how you are mediating subjects and objects, and even more than thinking we need tools that enable it to work. Assertions are only good if they can be simply generated, communicated, and understood. This is integration engineering. PingConnect is a concrete step in the direction and has all the markings of a next killer app.
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