For some time, OpenSSO Enterprise has provided client interfaces for access to core features and functionality. These interfaces are used by policy agents and custom applications developed by customers. With this release, OpenSSO Enterprise now exposes certain functions as simple identity web services allowing developers to easily invoke them when developing their applications using one of the supported integrated development environment (IDE) products. (The IDE generates the stub code that wraps a call to the web service.) Identity Web Services are available using:
SOAP and Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
Representational State Transfer (REST)
They do not require the deployment of an agent or a proxy and include the following capabilities:
Authentication to validate user credentials.
Authorization to permit access to protected resources.
Provisioning for user attribute management and self registration.
Logging to keep track of it all.
For more information on identity services, see Identity Web Services and Part IV, The Web Services Stack, Identity Services, and Web Services Security.