Cloud Identity SCIMs Forward

Cloud Identity Summit Keynotes Emphasize Standards

KEYSTONE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This week at the 2nd annual Cloud Identity Summit, more than 250 renowned security experts gathered to discuss and debate the future for securing the enterprise, its applications and its users in the Cloud. Hosted by Ping Identity, sponsored by Microsoft, Google, and Covisint, and featuring thought leaders from Salesforce, McAfee, Gartner, eBay, HP and others, Cloud Identity Summit comes at a critical juncture among businesses, users and the Cloud.

“We cannot be shortsighted, we cannot make short-term decisions. We do not have the luxury of getting this one wrong… I believe the world is going to be more convenient and more efficient as a result of what we do here.”

The opening keynote from Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity, focused on a unifying commitment to standards and industry collaboration to ensure the cloud identity infrastructure laid down today enables secure and efficient business and transactions tomorrow.

“We will reap what we sow in the identity industry,” said Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity. “We cannot be shortsighted, we cannot make short-term decisions. We do not have the luxury of getting this one wrong… I believe the world is going to be more convenient and more efficient as a result of what we do here.”

Durand compared today’s Cloud Identity Security space to the “wild west” with a variety of approaches and standards yet to be tamed.

Arctec Group Managing Principal Gunnar Peterson told a packed house that now is the time to create new threat models designed to address security requirements in the Cloud.

“It’s all interconnected, cloud, smartphones and tablets, so let’s collectively build security into these environments,” Peterson said.

In his session, “Cloud Identity: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Peterson shared a framework developed by Microsoft for assessing cloud security (STRIDE), and pointed to where standards such as SAML, OAuth, OpenID, and others can help.

Patrick Harding, CTO of Ping Identity, closed out the keynote sessions with “The State of Cloud Identity Security,” including a demonstration of the new Simple Cloud Identity Management (SCIM) cloud provisioning standard proposed by Google, Ping Identity, Salesforce.com, UnboundID and others. In the demonstration, Harding used SCIM to provision and de-provision a user of the UnBoundID application. The SCIM standard provisioning interface can be used for any cloud applications.

The conference concluded Thursday and was preceded by workshops on topics such Cloud Security 101, OpenID and OpenID Connect 101, OAuth 101 and Secure APIs and The Challenges of Consumer Identity in the Cloud. Attendees were able to see companies such as Bitkoo, Fuz1on, Passbank, Radiant Logic and Widgr along with the event sponsors, and participated in family friendly events nestled in the stunning vistas and moderate temperatures of the Colorado Rockies. For information on the 2011 conference proceedings or next year's event, learn more at www.cloudidentitysummit.com.

About Ping Identity | The Cloud Identity Security Leader

Ping Identity provides cloud identity security solutions to more than 600 of the world's largest companies, government organizations and cloud businesses. With a 99% customer satisfaction rating, Ping Identity empowers more than 40 of the Fortune 100 to secure hundreds of millions of employees, customers, consumers and partners using secure, open standards like SAML, OpenID and OAuth. Businesses that depend on the cloud rely on Ping Identity to deliver simple, proven and secure cloud identity management through single sign-on, federated identity management, mobile identity security, API security, and centralized access control. Visit pingidentity.com for more information.