Sun Unveils Digital Identifcation Offering

The Sun Open Net Environment Platform for Network Identity allows organizations to provide single sign-on to disparate applications, as well as authenticate users and services and authorize transactions.

Sun is moving to thwart Microsoft from using its dominance in the PC market to become a juggernaut in the nascent Web services market, which promises access to software over the Internet from any device. User identification is necessary for Web services so companies can offer services only to authorized people.

Sun spearheaded a coalition called the Liberty Alliance to make sure Web services providers and customers have a choice of software other than Microsoft's, according to Jonathan Schwartz, chief strategy officer at Sun.

The new Sun offering competes head-on with Microsoft's Passport service, which is required for Windows XP customers to use certain services. Sun's Open Net Environment Platform "is being presented directly to [Microsoft's Active Directory and Passport users," Schwartz says.

At the core of the Sun offering is the company's popular iPlanet Directory Server software, as well as Sun Fire UltraSPARC III servers, StorEdge D2 storage array and theSolaris 8 operating system.

Sun's platform doesn't have the security issues that plague Microsoft, nor is Sun a threat to potential Web services customers as Microsoft is by delivering both the infrastructure and operating the service, Schwartz says.

"Passport is how Microsoft gets to you," he says. "Then they offer you-- from the MSN Money Central portal--financial services in competition with the banking industry."

Sun is hoping customers will build internal network identity management systems and then use the Liberty Alliance specification--due out mid-year--for enabling federated access to services and data across different companies' networks.

"The [Sun 'Federated' approach is designed to prevent any one player from getting too much control," says Dana Gardner, an analyst at Aberdeen Group.

Adam Sohn, product manager for Microsoft's .NET platform strategy, says every vendor has security problems, including Sun.

"They're trying to stall the industry til they can catch up," Sohn says of Sun. "They're way behind."

Liberty Alliance Based On Open Standards

The Liberty platform will use open standards to allow companies to use whatever software they want, rather than tying them to one software or platform, Schwartz says.

Liberty Alliance was formed last September to counter Microsoft's .Net Web services plans. The 40 Liberty Alliance members are gaining critical mass, but analysts say there will need to be interoperability with Microsoft's Web services technology for the market to take off.

"For this to be to in everyone's benefit for major vendors and users, at a minimum, you have to have a way for the Microsoft world and the Liberty Alliance world to speak to one another and, in the best case scenario, merge their efforts into a single specification," says Dwight Davis of Summit Strategies.

Sohn says Microsoft talks to Liberty Alliance representatives every week and that there is a possibility the company may join at some point in the future, as long as Microsoft could protect its intellectual property.

"If our customers want it, we're going to give it to them," he says.

The U.S. Department of Defense's Manpower Data Center has already deployed Sun's Open Net Environment Platform to manage the digital identities of about 27 million employees, contractors, veterans and dependents for the Pentagon, Schwartz says.

"They're using it to provide their constituents access to the PX [on-base store, information about their benefits, updates on leave and earnings, [among other things," he says.

To access those services, users have a single badge that is a smart card containing data on who they are and what services they are privileged to access.

The Enterprise Edition of Sun's One Network Identity Platform is priced starting at $149,995. It includes two Sun Fire 280R UltraSPARC III servers, a 72-Gbyte Sun StorEdge D2 storage array, Solaris 8 operating system and the iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition 5 for managing up to 10,000 identities inside a firewall, which blocks intruders from getting onto a network.

The Internet Edition, priced starting at $999,995, includes four of the servers, a 145-Gbyte storage array and similar software to manage up to 250,000 identities outside a firewall.

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