Liberty Alliance Project

Note: The Liberty Alliance Project is no longer active. The materials have been contributed to the .

The Liberty Alliance Project was formed to establish an open standard for federated network identity. Federated identity answers many of the inefficiencies and complications of network identity management that both businesses and consumers face in today's world. Federated identity allows users to "link" elements of their identity between accounts without centrally storing all of their personal information. It also enables: 

  • Businesses to create new relationships with each other and to realize business objectives quicker, more securely and at a lower cost. 
  • Businesses to more easily and securely provision accounts and provide access to the right resources. 
  • Consumers and employees a far more satisfactory on-line experience as well as new levels of personalization, security and control over identity information. 

The goal of the Liberty Alliance was to create specifications that incorporate, leverage and support other industry standards, allowing members and organizations to build products and services that interoperate and promote secure federated identity management. Liberty specifications were built on existing open industry standards such as XML, and .

Liberty Alliance Web Services specifications

By 2009, the Kantara Initiative took over the work of the Liberty Alliance. More information: .

Context for Liberty Alliance Project

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The Savvy Manager's Guide

is also the author of a book that explains Web Services, service-oriented architecture, and Cloud Computing in an easy-to-understand, non-technical manner.

Web Services, Service-Oriented Architectures, and Cloud Computing: The Savvy Manager's Guide

by with David Dick

This is a guide for the savvy manager who wants to capitalize on the wave of change that is occurring with Web Services, service-oriented architecture, and—more recently—Cloud Computing. The changes wrought by these technologies will require both a basic grasp of the technologies and an effective way to deal with how these changes will affect the people who build and use the systems in our organizations. This book covers both issues. Managers at all levels of all organizations must be aware of both the changes that we are now seeing and ways to deal with issues created by those changes.