Application providers need SPML
Service Provisioning Mark-up Langue (SPML) is an Oasis XML standard that defines how to provisoin identity data between disparate systems without the need of a complex metadirectory solution like MIIS.
Unfortunatly, the SPML 1.0 spec was not extensive enough to make SPML appealing; version 2.o however resolves this problem. SPML 2.0 supports the necessary verbs (commands) to provision (create, move and update) user accounts rather than providing simple create capability that vesion 1.0 provided. This means that SPML 2.0 will cover the real world senarios that will be required to drive its adoption.
My un-offical survey of major vendors indicates to me that SPML 2.0 adoption is still a slow procss, but 2007 looks promising. Vendors like IBM have intentions to support SPML 2.0 and vendors with existing SPML 1.0 support (SAP and SUN) are moving to update their implementions to support verison 2.0. As these vendors implement SPML 2.0 there will be an incentive for application vendors to follow suit and implement SPML 2.0 so that their systems can be automatically provisioned by the IdM systems used by their customers without the costly custom coding required to accoplish cross-platoform user provisioning that is today’s reality for many organizatoins.
