Federated identity management and interoperability for heterogeneous cloud platform ecosystems

Abstract

This paper describes an approach to overcome the interoperability challenges related to identity management systems supporting cross-collaboration between heterogeneous manufacturing platforms. Traditional identity management systems have shown many weaknesses when it comes to cloud platforms and their federations, from not being able to support a simplified login process, to information disclosure and complexity of implementation in practice. This paper discusses workflows to practically implement federated identity management across the heterogeneous manufacturing platforms and design interoperability at different levels, e.g. at the platform level and at the platform integration level. Our motivation to find the best federated identity management solution for heterogeneous cloud-based platforms is related to practical requirements coming from the ongoing European project eFactory.