As Always -- A Must Read

Identity Management and Web Services: The Yen and Yang of Distributed Computing

Just as the business processes IT supports are changing, then, enterprise identity management must change as well. Today, most companies manage identity on a per-application basis. But identity must become more persistent through the continuum of any given business process, spanning not just multiple applications, but multiple organizations. Only then can identity provide the predicates for security, regulatory compliance, risk and liability management, and other core business functions. Thus, identity-based security mechanisms are a core component of the Web services framework.