Steve on Security

Part of the Mix11 announcement was that ACS v2 was released to production.  It was actually released last Thursday but we were told to keep as quiet as possible so they could announce it at Mix.  Here is the marketing speak:

The new ACS includes a plethora of new features that customers and partners have been asking with enthusiasm: single sign on from business and web identity providers, easy integration with our development tools, support for both enterprise-grade and web friendly protocols, out of the box integration with Facebook, Windows Live ID, Google and Yahoo, and many others.

Those features respond to such fundamental needs in modern cloud based systems that ACS has already become a key asset in many of our own offerings.

There is a substantial difference between v1 and v2.  In v2, we now see:

Federation provider and Security Token Service (FINALLY!)

• Out of box federation with Active Directory Federation Services 2.0, Windows Live ID, Google, Yahoo, Facebook

New authorization scenarios

• Delegation using OAuth 2.0

Improved developer experience

• New web-based management portal
• Fully programmatic management using OData
• Works with Windows Identity Foundation

Additional protocol support

• WS-Federation, WS-Trust, OpenID 2.0, OAuth 2.0 (Draft 13)

That's a lot of stuff to keep up with, but luckily Microsoft has made it easier for us by giving us a whole whack of content to learn from.

First off, all of the training kits have now been updated to support v2:

• Identity Developer Training Kit
• Windows Azure Training Kit

Second, there are a bunch of new Channel9 videos just released:

• ACS v2 Ships
• Justin Smith on the v2 Release
• ACS + Windows Phone 7 == Awesomeness
• Aaron Smalser on the real world user interactions of ACS

Third, and finally, the Claims Based Identity and Access Control Guide was updated!

Talk about a bunch of awesome stuff.

Mix 2011 has opened voting for public session submissions, and I submitted one!  Here is the abstract:

Identity Bests – Managing User Identity in the new Decade

Presenter: Steve Syfuhs

Identity is a tricky thing to manage. These days every website requires some knowledge of the user, which inevitably requires users to log in to identify themselves. Over the next few years we will start seeing a shift toward a centralized identity model removing the need to manage users and their credentials for each website. This session will cover the fundamentals of Claims Based Authentication using the Windows Identity Foundation and how you can easily manage user identities across multiple websites as well across organizational boundaries.

If you think this session should be presented please vote: http://live.visitmix.com/OpenCall/Vote/Session/182.

(Please vote even if you don’t! )