Identity is a complex topic, and the Cloud has increased the necessity for every organization to have a strategic plan for verifying identity before granting access to critical data and systems. I did a deep dive into the subject with my five-part series called Identity (Management) Crisis, published here on Windowsecurity.com. If you didn’t see it, check it out starting with Part 1 here:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Identity-Management-Crisis-Part1.html
Tom picked up on those concepts and took a look at the design of identity solutions from an architectural perspective, in his presentation at TechEd Europe called The Four Pillars of Identity. As the name implies, the session focused on a four-part framework based on the basic components of administration, authentication, authorization and audit. It’s a 300 level session that you can see on MSDN’s Channel 9 web site at: