RE: [provision] RE: Account-specific operations (was "Basic Operations...")

["Cohen, Doron" <Doron_Cohen@bmc.com>]

Jeff,

I do believe that we need to better model how provisioning is used and that
drives me to the conclusion that the concepts of accounts, passwords,
suspension and resume and so on should be part of what we refer to.  I do
not necessarily suggest that we should have a core protocol operation named
'password change' . On the contrary . I like the simplicity and intuitive
nature of our current SPML 1.0 model with the crud operations but for the
sake of interoperability we need PrOM or a standard schema that will
correctly model the provisioning space.


Doron

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Bohren [mailto:jbohren@opennetwork.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 4:50 PM
To: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [provision] RE: Account-specific operations (was "Basic
Operations...")



All password related information  (the password, password reset status,
etc.) has to be optionally set on the provision provisioning request. All
the password related information, except the password itself, needs to be
readable as well. 

By adding password operations we would essentially create a protocol by
which some information can be set using the standard CRUD operations, but
must be modified and read using an entirely different set of password
specific operations. That makes the protocol more complex and harder to
understand.

I have heard several people express the opinion that having an operation
called "set password" is somehow more intuitive and easier to understand
than using existing operations to set a password attribute. There is no
evidence of that and quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. LDAP is the
single most successful identity management protocol in use today, and it
uses setting a password attribute. 

It seems to me we should emulate proven success where possible. If there is
a way that is simpler and clearer I'm all for it, but so far I have not seen
any arguments to that effect.

Jeff Bohren
Product Architect
OpenNetwork Technologies, Inc
 
Try the industry's only 100% .NET-enabled identity management software.
Download your free copy of Universal IdP Standard Edition today. Go to
www.opennetwork.com/eval.
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Cohen, Doron [mailto:Doron_Cohen@bmc.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 4:06 AM
To: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [provision] RE: Account-specific operations (was "Basic
Operations...")



I agree that on one hand we do not want to limit ourselves to just account
provisioning but that does not require in my view the exclusion of password
management operations . That obviously require the schema to allow the
client to be able to know what operations are allowed for each type of a
PSO/PSTD and obviously relate to it. In fact there are some cases when even
CRUD operations can not be complete . For example, some target would not
allow a delete operation to take place but we still like to have delete as a
core operation. 

Enriching the model we have with native operations that provide the SPML
implementer a easy to understand view of the "world of provisioning" would
not necessarily make the standard more complex , in fact it may simplify the
implementation by providing a more straight forward view of the domain.

Doron

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Bohren [mailto:jbohren@opennetwork.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 10:41 PM
To: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [provision] RE: Account-specific operations (was "Basic
Operations...")



Even if you assume (which I don't) that only accounts are provisioned, there
still needs to be a way to determine what kind of accounts support what kind
of operations. For instance Solaris accounts don't support suspend/restore
semantics. Also the difference between set and reset password is not
universal among system that use passwords.

Another interesting case would be provisioning accounts for which passwords
are meaningless altogether. For instance if an RA was making a provisioning
request to a PSP to create accounts strictly for the use SAML,
WS-Federation, or Liberty SSO, that account may never have a password. In
this case suspend/restore makes sense, but the password operations don't. 

Or you may be provisioning end user accounts for use by a web service
enforcement agent. The agent may authorize calls made on the part of an end
user by an authenticated client, where the client never actually
authenticated directly to the agent and does not have a password on that
system.

While I would agree that most provisioning operations on a given service
would concern accounts, that does not mean that other kinds of objects can
be given secondary status. That would severely limit the usefulness of the
spec for no benefit.

I would assume the following:
1) Not all PSOs are accounts
2) Not all PSOs that are accounts can be suspended
3) Not all PSOs that are accounts have passwords
4) Not all PSOs that are accounts and have passwords have password
expirations 

Given those assumptions, I don't see any gain in including suspend/restore
and password semantics in the core SPML protocol. It would only make thing
more complicated than they currently are.

Jeff Bohren
Product Architect
OpenNetwork Technologies, Inc
 
Try the industry's only 100% .NET-enabled identity management software.
Download your free copy of Universal IdP Standard Edition today. Go to
www.opennetwork.com/eval.
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Cole [mailto:Gary.P.Cole@Sun.COM] 
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 2:54 PM
To: Jeff Bohren
Cc: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Account-specific operations (was "Basic Operations...")


I've been thinking about this a lot lately (of course, this doesn't mean
that I'm right, just that I'm trying), and I believe that provisioning is
*and should be* account-centric.

The organizations, groups, roles, and rights defined by a target are
relatively static.  The vast majority of the time, we are creating accounts.
These may *refer* to (or belong to) organizational units, groups, and roles,
but they don't always *need* to.

I would assert that with respect to provisioning:
1) *accounts* are primary
2) account *memberships* in containers are secondary
3) *container* objects themselves are tertiary.

I really hope we can find a way to agree, because I think this is important.
We (all the PSTC members) have talked at cross-purposes occasionally, since
each of us come from different points-of-view. 

We had a little bit of a breakthrough when we distinguished "white-box" from
"black-box" PSPs.  

I'm hoping that the distinction between "internal" and "external"
provisioning may do something like that again.  External provisioning is the
simple case, in which services are well-defined and very few choices are
exposed.  In such a case, you don't see the other enterprise's org tree, and
you may not want to make your operations schema-dependendent. However, you
still need to be able to enable/disable the identity and set/reset/expire
passwords.

Taking a different tack, let's look at it terms of necessity and
sufficiency.  I think we'd all agree that it's *necessary* for a PSP to
create accounts. Some might even argue that creating, deleting and modifying
accounts is *sufficient* for a PSP. It is NOT necessary for a PSP to create
organizational units, although this is desirable.

If we can agree that it's okay for provisioning to be account-centric, I
think we'll be money ahead.  This will make the protocol easier to
understand, easier to adopt, and better adapted to the basic use cases.

Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Bohren <jbohren@opennetwork.com>
Date: Monday, May 3, 2004 1:31 pm
Subject: RE: [provision] Basic operations (that should be explicit)

> 
> On the enable/disable and password operations I still have the same
> concerns as before. Specifically how does a client know for which PSOs

> those operations make sense. For instance our SPML service can be used

> to provision user accounts as well as organizations units and other
> object types. Obviously reset password does not make sense for 
> oraganizational units.
> 
> Since it is too limiting to only support account provisioning in SPML,

> it does not make sense to me to include account specific operations in 
> the protocol.
> 
> Jeff Bohren
> Product Architect
> OpenNetwork Technologies, Inc
> 
> Try the industry's only 100% .NET-enabled identity management 
> software.Download your free copy of Universal IdP Standard Edition 
> today. Go to www.opennetwork.com/eval.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Cole [Gary.P.Cole@Sun.COM]
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 2:06 PM
> To: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [provision] Basic operations (that should be explicit)
> 
> 
> I believe that certain basic operations should be explicit in the SPML

> protocol.  For one thing, this helps the protocol reflect the
> provisioning domain. For another, it reduces dependence on schema.
> 
> The most basic operations are CRUD:
> - Create
> - Rename
> - Update
> - Delete
> 
> We already have Add, Modify, and Delete, but I think that we should 
> call out Rename explicitly.  Renaming  has significant implications 
> for the namespace and for references.
> 
> I think we should also have:
> - Enable
> - Disable
> - SetPassword
> - ResetPassword
> - ExpirePassword
> 
> I realize that one could almost perform an equivalent update by: 1)
> looking up the schema; and 2) finding the appropriate element or 
> attribute; and 3) specifying an appropriate value.  However, that 
> methodwill differ for each PSP or target.  Basic operations should be 
> simple, and should not require schema knowledge.
> 
> What say you, grand mavens of provisioning?
> 
> Gary
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster 
> of the OASIS TC), go to
> http://www.oasis- 
> open.org/apps/org/workgroup/provision/members/leave_workgroup.php.
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster 
> of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis- 
> open.org/apps/org/workgroup/provision/members/leave_workgroup.php.
> 


To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the
OASIS TC), go to
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/provision/members/leave_wor
kgro
up.php.

To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the
OASIS TC), go to
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/provision/members/leave_wor
kgroup.php.


To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the
OASIS TC), go to
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/provision/members/leave_workgro
up.php.