Interoperability between Heterogeneous Federation Architectures: Illustration with SAML and WS-Federation

TL;DR

This paper compares SAML and WS-Federation to address interoperability challenges between heterogeneous federation architectures in digital identity management, proposing convergence strategies for enhanced system interoperability.

Contribution

It provides an in-depth comparison of two main federation protocols and proposes methods for achieving interoperability between heterogeneous architectures.

Findings

Identified key differences between SAML and WS-Federation.

Proposed convergence approaches for interoperability.

Highlighted the importance of protocol compatibility for federation interoperability.

Abstract

Digital identity management intra and inter information systems, and, service oriented architectures, are the roots of identity federation. This kind of security architectures aims at enabling information system interoperability. Existing architectures, however, do not consider interoperability of heterogeneous federation architectures, which rely on different federation protocols.In this paper, we try to initiate an in-depth reflection on this issue, through the comparison of two main federation architecture specifications: SAML and WS-Federation. We firstly propose an overall outline of identity federation. We furthermore address the issue of interoperability for federation architectures using a different federation protocol. Afterwards, we compare SAML and WS-Federation. Eventually, we define the ways of convergence, and therefore, of interoperability.