Entrust Secure Transaction Platform
Identification Service
The Entrust Identification Service allows Web services application developers to avoid having to understand the complexities of identifying other Web services and users. Through handling multiple types of identification methods (for example, userIDs and passwords, digital certificates, …) on behalf of Web services applications, the Identification Service provides a centralized capability for managing the different types of authentication methods that organizations have to deal with internally among different systems and externally when integrating business processes with customers and partners.
The Identification Service enables organizations to centrally control which identities are trusted for automated Web services transactions — even though the administration of this information may be distributed across the organization — so that each Web services application does not have to manage these issues independently.
An administrative interface allows organizations to define the community of users (and the type of identities that will be accepted) that are to be trusted across the variety of identification methods handled by the service. For example, organizations can specify the set of userIDs and passwords that are trusted for executing transactions. Similarly, organizations can easily specify — with flexibility and fine-grained controls — the community of digital certificates that are trusted.
From userIDs and passwords all the way up to strong identification through digital certificates (with and without smart cards), the Identification Service understands identification methods and knows which identities the organization trusts.
