Novell has launched an ambitious open-source identity management project, which aims to allow companies to integrate different identity systems and provide a consistent approach to securing and managing identity.Called “Bandit,” the company quietly initiated the project earlier this year, and has been donating engineering resources and code to get things started.Novell has a track record in identity management products and some credibility in the open source world, due to its acquisition of Suse Linux, and is hoping that a freely available integration layer will mean more sales for the whole identity management market.“Novell’s initial sponsorship of the Bandit project is a natural extension of our leadership in both identity and open source, and we are gratified to see the groundswell of community support,” said Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Novell, in a statement. The company has lined up support for Bandit from a number of key industry players, including ActivIdentity, Eclipse, IBM, Liberty Alliance, Microsoft, Novacoast, Red Hat, Sun, Sxip Identity, Symantec and Trusted Network Technologies.“The Identity Metasystem provides a model for identity interoperability across the industry. We’re happy to see Novell playing an active role in helping realize the Identity Metasystem and look forward to working with them to ensure interoperability between our respective products,” said Kim Cameron, architect of Identity and Access for Microsoft, in a statement. The Bandit services will work with existing industry standards such as the WS-* standards, Liberty Federation and Eclipse Higgins. Indeed, Bandit has some overlap with the open-source Higgins effort, Novell has acknowledged, and Bandit’s developers are planning a Higgins context provider based on Bandit’s Common Identity service. The context provider is the way the Higgins framework accesses different identity repositories.Ultimately, Bandit aims to provide an easier approach to problems such as secure, role-based access and regulatory compliance reporting, Novell said. The project’s four main components are the Common Authentication Services Adapter (CASA), the Common Identity service, the Role Engine service and the Audit Record Framework service.Industry analysts have said the initiative appears promising, given Novell’s background and the apparent willingness of other heavyweights to participate.“This is not the first open source identity management initiative, but the involvement of identity management heavyweight Novell is significant,” said Neil Macehiter, partner at analyst firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton, in a research note. “The fact that the project is focusing on higher-level identity management issues gives it added significance.”-Matthew Broersma, Techworld.com (London)Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP What goes well with Viña Concha y Toro wines? Meat, fish, poultry, and SAP Viña Concha y Toro, a wine producer that distributes to more than 140 countries worldwide, paired its operation with the SAP Business Technology Platform to enhance its operation and product. By Tom Caldecott, SAP Contributor Dec 04, 2023 4 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by Azul How to maximize ROI by choosing the right Java partner for your organization Choosing the right Java provider is a critical decision that can have a significant impact on your organization’s success. By asking the right questions and considering the total cost of ownership, you can ensure that you choose the best Java p By Scott Sellers Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Application Management brandpost Sponsored by DataStax Ask yourself: How can genAI put your content to work? Generative AI applications can readily be built against the documents, emails, meeting transcripts, and other content that knowledge workers produce as a matter of course. By Bryan Kirschner Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence feature The CIO’s new role: Orchestrator-in-chief CIOs have unique insight into everything that happens in a company. Some are using that insight to take on a more strategic role. By Minda Zetlin Dec 04, 2023 12 mins CIO C-Suite Business IT Alignment Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe