Title: On federated single sign-on in e-government interoperability frameworks

Authors: Giansalvatore Mecca; Michele Santomauro; Donatello Santoro; Enzo Veltri

Addresses: Dipartimento di Matematica, Informatica ed Economia, Università della Basilicata – viale dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10 – 85100 Potenza, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica, Informatica ed Economia, Università della Basilicata – viale dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10 – 85100 Potenza, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica, Informatica ed Economia, Università della Basilicata – viale dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10 – 85100 Potenza, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica, Informatica ed Economia, Università della Basilicata – viale dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10 – 85100 Potenza, Italy

Abstract: We consider the problem of handling digital identities within service-oriented architecture (SOA) architectures. We explore federated, single sign-on (SSO) solutions based on identity managers and service providers. After an overview of the different standards and protocols, we introduce a middleware-based architecture to simplify the integration of legacy systems within such platforms. Our solution is based on a middleware module that decouples the legacy system from the identity-management modules. We consider both standard point-to-point service architectures, and complex government interoperability frameworks, and report experiments to show that our solution provides clear advantages both in terms of effectiveness and performance.

Keywords: web services; SOA; service-oriented architecture; SSO; single sign-on; federated identity; e-government interoperability; electronic government; online government; digital identities; identity management; middleware; legacy systems integration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEG.2016.076684

International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2016 Vol.8 No.1, pp.6 - 21

Received: 28 Feb 2015
Accepted: 18 Nov 2015
Published online: 20 May 2016 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article