Mixing Heterogeneous Authentication and Authorization Infrastructures through Proxies

The ever increasing diffusion of digital services offered by institutional organizations and the need of interoperability among them have made crucial the role of Authentication and Authorization Infrastructures (AAIs). Numerous formats and technologies for data exchange have been developed in recent years and some of them have become very popular. This paper discusses the main challenges an organization has to face in making its services seamlessly available to end-users and client systems across multiple AAIs. An effective solution, relying on Authentication and Authorization Proxies, like SATOSA, which allows the interoperability of hybrid types of service providers and consumers, is described. In particular, a scenario is considered which envisages the support of heterogeneous (public) digital identity technologies for access to digital services on a university campus.