NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DAVE KEARNS ON IDENTITY MANAGEMENT
11/29/04
Today's focus:  The answer to a provisioning MIB could be 
forthcoming from OASIS

Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED],

In this issue:

* Moves afoot to bring out a Provisioning Schema spec
* Links related to Identity Management
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus:  The answer to a provisioning MIB could be 
forthcoming from OASIS

By Dave Kearns

You'll remember, hopefully, that we've been talking about 
standardizing an audit log protocol, which was described as 
Simple Network Management Protocol for identity. It was also 
described as "SNMP for identity management" and "SNMP for 
identity access management." That led to a description of a 
"management information base-like" structure for provisioning 
tools.

Now Jeff Bohren of OpenNetwork Technologies, has reminded me 
that Service Provisioning Markup Language, or SPML (the folks on 
its technical committee hate it when I pronounce it as SPAM-el) 
contains at least the germ of a provisioning MIB through its 
common schema.

Bohren knows it's the germ of a MIB because he proposed it to 
the XRPM Working Group for Extensible Resource Provisioning 
Management, and actually called it the "Provisioning MIB." This 
was back before the Provisioning Services Technical Committee of 
OASIS, the "owners" of SPML, even existed.

Originally, the XRPM (Extensible Resource Provisioning 
Management) group was an ad-hoc committee that created the XRPM 
specification, and later became the OASIS Provisioning Services 
Technical Committee.  (The ad-hoc group's former Web site, 
xprm.org, is now a porn site. Don't go there!)

According to Bohren, "The SPML 1.0 and 2.0 specs both support 
this concept of a 'Provisioning MIB' by another name - 
'Provisioning Schema.' Further, an effort was started to create 
the equivalent of 'MIB-2' for provisioning, but was put on hold 
to focus on finalizing the SPML 2.0 protocol. I expect that 
after 2.0 is sent for approval, that effort will start up 
again." SPML 1.0 was voted as an OASIS Standard in November 
2003, and SPML 2.0 is expected to be submitted for approval 
early next year.

Let's try to bring this back to where it started, though.

In this newsletter about a month ago, I mentioned that suppose 
software, applications and services had their own MIB for audit 
controls, who better to know what and how to audit that than the 
vendor that creates the service or application? Note also that 
this was in the context of regulatory compliance. We're talking 
about a standard protocol for monitoring audit logs 
automatically so that every application or service that needs to 
be - or might be - audited for compliance would have a standard 
interface for the auditing software to access. Provisioning can 
certainly be a part of that system since good provisioning apps 
can, for example, monitor and log changes to authentication and 
authorization criteria.

The "provisioning MIB" is very likely a good start, as is the 
initiative of Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise we looked at 
a couple of weeks ago ( 
<http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/dir/2004/1115id2.html> ). 
The real question is where to go next.

Who should have jurisdiction for this project - OASIS, the IETF, 
The Open Group? Or should an ad-hoc committee try to bring it 
all together? I have my own idea, of course, but I want to hear 
yours. Drop me a note either just pointing to a group or 
explaining why a particular group would be best. As always, I'll 
share with everyone in a few weeks.

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

Tech Update: Federated ID facilitates Web services
Network World, 11/29/0
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/2004/112904techupdate.html
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dave Kearns

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's 
written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print 
"Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be 
found at Virtual Quill <http://www.vquill.com/>.

Kearns is the author of three Network World Newsletters: Windows 
Networking Tips, Novell NetWare Tips, and Identity Management. 
Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these 

respective addresses: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.

Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books, 
manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, 
technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill 
provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail at 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
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