The design and implementation of an extensible, user-management service for communications applications

Many network administration organizations, including communication service providers, are faced with the problem of managing a growing number of applications with fewer administrators. Administrators are required to provision and administer application-specific data in order for users (e.g., subscribers) to access and use communication applications. Although there are several approaches for solving the problem of sharing identity data across applications, a general solution for provisioning and sharing the complete user or subscriber profile has not been defined. This article describes the design and implementation of an extensible, user-management service that solves the problem of the redundant data entry required in provisioning and maintaining multiple communication applications. An important aspect of the design is the capability of the user-management service to be extended at run time without requiring an upgrade of the service and without impacting already deployed applications. Key lessons that can be applied to reduce the time and cost for other organizations faced with implementing user- or subscriber-management projects also are described.