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Microsoft's road from Zermatt to Geneva @ PDC

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I was attending a great session about (newly codenamed) Geneva platform and services. Basically it is the evolution of the so called Zermatt project you might have read about in the past. The new Geneva stuff totally blew my mind away...

Imagine that you actually don't have to worry about user identities, federation and similar issues when building your applications. Imagine all you need to do is change the config file of your application (we are talking .NET here) and the authentication, identity federation, etc. is all taken care of for you. Imagine hassle free SSO scenarious for end users...

Welcome to the world of the Microsoft "Geneva" Claims Based Access Control Framework and Platform! (ok also in this world you do still need admins that now how to configure - basically click, click, click away - the Geneva Servers).

Read more about Geneva at the official Identity Management site and preview a short excerpt about "Geneva" benefits for different audiences:

  • For developers: "Geneva" helps simplify user access for developers by externalizing access logic from applications via claims, and reducing development effort with pre-built security logic and integrated .NET tools.
  • For IT professionals: "Geneva" helps IT efficiently deploy and manage new applications by reducing custom implementation work, consolidating access management in the hands of IT, helping establish a consistent security model, and facilitating seamless collaboration between organizations with automated federation tools.
  • For information workers and consumers: Users can benefit from help navigating logins, managing different personas, and controlling how personal information is shared.