Overview
Web services provide a means of doing distributed computing to make application interactions more flexible and composable in response to changing needs.
Web services and the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) practices that guide their creation promise improvements in interoperable machine-to-machine communication over a network, both within an enterprise's boundaries and across the broader Internet, using XML and the Web as enabling technologies.
Digital identity is an essential component of valuable web services and applications; for example, sharing digital identity information can help in authenticating and authorizing users and providing personalised service. Particularly now that individuals' digital identity is being 'distributed' much the way applications are being distributed, businesses, governments, and other organizations are working to treat it - and our wishes about it - with respect and privacy.
This track will discuss the potential benefits of using web services and digital identity; review the relevant standards and technologies that provide cross-platform interoperability in using them; and discuss security and other challenges that may arise, all with a real-world focus.
Learning Objectives
After taking this course you will understand:
- The problems that web services purport to solve
- The key issues of security and identity in modern web environments
- The security challenges of using XML for distributed application communications
- The infrastructure technologies that are essential to deploying web services
- Why and how identity information is shared among applications and services
- Identity-focused web services for achieving access control and personalisation
Who should Attend
This course is aimed at IT staff who are considering deploying or using web services or are looking at adding new identity capabilities to traditional environments served by directory technology.
Faculty
This course is prepared and delivered by a world-renowned faculty, including:
- Eve Maler (Chair)
- Marc Hadley
- Rich Salz
- Paul Masden
- Jeff Barr
- Conor Cahill
Curriculum for 2008 - yet to be announced
Curriculum from 2007
Module 1
1.1 Introduction to Web Services Technology
Speaker: Marc Hadley
This lecture will:
- Present basic message exchange patterns
- Review relevant standards and protocols for message encapsulation and interface description
1.2 Web Services Conventions and Controversies
Speaker: Paul Downey
This lecture will focus on:
- Distributed computing in the modern world, and the role of XML
- Business benefits, such as flexibility and reusability, factoring out common functions, and platform choice
- Business costs, such as refactoring applications and greater security challenges
- Stylistic options such as SOAP, REST, and AJaX, and how to select them
- The variety of environments in which web services are being deployed
1.3 Advanced Web Services Technology
Speaker: John Kemp
This lecture will:
- Present advanced message exchange patterns
- Review relevant standards and protocols for advanced features
- Introduce notions of identity and trust for services
- Discuss challenges in doing web services in constrained and non-SOAP/HTTP environments, such as on mobile phone clients
1.4 Real-World Case Study: Amazon Web Services
Speaker: Jeff Barr
Jeff Barr will describe the ways in which Amazon uses and makes available a variety of innovative web services.
Module 2
2.1 Security for XML and Web Services
Speaker: Rich Salz
This lecture will:
- Provide background on asymmetric cryptography techniques
- Discuss the unique opportunities and challenges of XML and web services with respect to security
- Review relevant standards and protocols for web services security technologies such as digital signing, encryption, and message-layer security
2.2 Federated Identity Technologies
Speaker: Eve Maler
This lecture will:
- Review relevant standards and protocols for representing and exchanging identity information
- Discuss the mechanisms of sharing credentials and user attributes for achieving single sign-on
- Describe the uses and mechanisms of account linking
2.3 Identity Web Services
Speaker: Paul Madsen
This lecture will:
- Introduce use cases that illustrate opportunities and needs around secure, private exchange of identity between service endpoints
- Outline services needed to achieve these goals
- Review the relevant standards and protocols defining these services
2.4 Real-World Case Study: Web Services and Identity Management for Implementation of National Health Information Networks
Speaker: John Chelsom
The sharing of Electronic Health Records on a national scale is an issue that is high on the political agenda in almost every country with a well developed healthcare delivery infrastructure. Major programmes are underway in the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany and Finland to name but a few. The technology infrastructure for national health information networks has in most cases included large-scale implementation of web services and identity management, and is underpinned by XML technology. This case study provides practical insight into web services and identity management at work on a massive scale in England, Finland and the US.
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