Sun OpenSSO Enterprise 8.0 Technical Overview

Access Control

OpenSSO Enterprise manages authorized access to network services and resources. By implementing authentication and authorization, OpenSSO Enterprise (along with an installed policy agent) ensures that access to protected resources is restricted to authorized users. In a nutshell, a policy agent intercepts a request for access to a resource and communicates with OpenSSO Enterprise to authenticate the requestor. If the user is successfully authenticated, the policy agent then evaluates the policies associated with the requested resource and the user to determine if the authenticated user is authorized to access the resource. If the user is authorized, the policy agent allows access to the resource, also providing identity data to the resource to personalize the interaction. For more information on access control, see Core Services and Part II, Access Control Using OpenSSO Enterprise.