Google Enterprise Labs announced the release of the Google Search Appliance Version 5.0, featuring enhanced security for enterprise applications. The Google Search Appliance provides document and user-level access control across all web-enabled enterprise content to ensure that users only see search results for documents they're permitted to access. With version 5.0, the designers made significant performance improvement to the SAML SPI framework; as a result the customers who leverage SAML SPI will be improved performance on their secured search queries.

...Federation is perhaps the most important emerging technology in SSO for governments worldwide. It is largely driven, sources say, by the need to make unconnected departments that must nonetheless collaborate, along with their equally divided IT resources, securely accessible via the Web to constituents through a single point of contact. Federation “gives people the ability to establish multienterprise levels of trust,” said David Ting, Imprivata’s chief technology officer.

OASIS has issued Calls for Vote to determine if two specification sets should be approved as OASIS Standards:

1. Metadata Profile for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 1.x
2. Metadata Extension for SAML 2.0 and 1.x Query Requesters.

OASIS members who wish to discuss the ballot may do so through the member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org mailing list. Primary representatives of OASIS organizations members should cast ballots before the deadline of 31 Oct.