Architecture Patterns for a Ubiquitous Identity Management System

The design of an Identity Management System (IdM) must strike a balance between protocol overhead, software footprint and security level in order to operate successfully under the resource constraints found in mobile and wireless systems. But, what is good for a constrained system is also good for everyone else, in the sense that reduced overhead benefits all business application processing. This paper contributes to the discussion of IdM construction by suggesting patterns that preserves existing investments, maintains adaptability, scalability and modularity of the IdM. It also provides a discussion where security level is balanced with other non-functional requirements, which is seen less often in security research. A prototypical IdM systems built upon the proposed principles is also presented to some detail.