Asimba is the name of the next generation of OpenASelect, a flexible and modular Access Management and Single Signon application. Asimba is implemented as Java/J2EE application, using Servlet technology. The server application consists of a core authentication and authorization framework into which many features can be implemented, like different identity and authorization protocols, as well as support for many different authentication and authorization technologies.

Asimba vision

The motivation behind Asimba is to provide access to a lean and mean, bleeding edge, flexible, enterprise quality software component for providing identities to other services.

First of all, the foundations of the Asimba application are based on Java Enterprise Edition, a proven technology for deploying enterprise applications. The application is designed around a pluggable architecture, making it as easy as possible to tweak into most environments with the least amount of customization. This also provides a framework that is easily extended to support the latest and greatest of innovation, without breaking the features that are proven and trustworthy.

Development

The path of Asimba towards future development, is to remain responsible for the development of the core framework and featureset, the Asimba Server Baseline. This enables everybody to use Asimba as standard component in their infrastructure, and keeping focus on the features that make it count. Whenever the development of modularized features requires changes in the core of the framework, Asimba will take care of merging these framework updates into new releases for the public.

Community

The subject of online identity is very challenging in many disciplines, and so is the Asimba project. Because there is no general solution, it is essential to invest in knowledge to establish an online identity strategy and oversee the consequences of it. Technology can play a game changing role in this strategy. Asimba tries to add value to this by being a platform where its users can share their experiences with each other and the public, and thereby increase the awareness of how identity can be done by using Asimba.

We actively seek people who want to be part of Asimba.

History of Asimba

Asimba is the fork of OpenASelect, an open source project that was developed in the Netherlands by Alfa & Ariss. It used to be the next generation of the open source ASelect project. The roots of OpenASelect are from the early years of the 2000s, where it was deployed at the heart of the dutch government infrastructure for citizens to identify for government services, DigiD. As such, plenty of practical experience was obtained when OpenASelect was implemented. Combine this with the fact that it offers a decent set of basic features, offers excellent options to extend this functionality and that it was available as open source component, it proved to be a worthy element for building solutions for clients for both Cozmanova and Magic Choice.

When in 2011 the company that built OpenASelect was incorporated into a new company, the support site openaselect.org was put in maintenance mode, and all source and documentation were taken offline. The new owner of OpenASelect could not confirm any plans to keep supporting the application in any form. There is strong belief that online identity is an ever increasing important subject in the internet of the future, and the availability of a diverse offering of high quality identity management building blocks is a requirement. By retreating OpenASelect as a freely available option, this would mean less choice for organizations looking for a good identity architecture. Hence, Cozmanova and Magic Choice decided to work together and give OpenASelect a future by forking the project as Asimba.

In february 2012, the fork was announced and since april 2012 the sources and documentation are republished and rewritten. A new website was launched in an attempt to build an open community towards the continuation of Asimba. The rest is future…

Find out more about its features, or learn more about the background of the project.