The Architecture Journal devotes the latest issue (Journal 16, July 2008) to Identity and Access, a topic near and dear to my heart. You can read the issue online, download it as a zipped PDF, or view it and all issues offline in the Architecture Journal Reader. This issue has a lot to offer, so dig right in.

I want to call out two personal highlights. First is an article on federated identity patterns by fellow Connected Systems MVP Jesus Rodriguez and his colleague Joe Klug. Jesus and Joe are Chief Architect and CTO, respectively, at Tellago.

Second is an article on claims and identity for on-premise and cloud solutions by Vittorio Bertocci. Vittorio's article serves as a nice background for Zermatt, which is the project codename for a Microsoft .NET framework for writing claims-aware applications that Vittorio announced in July.

On the lighter side, the issue includes a profile of Kim Cameron, Identity Architect in Microsoft's Connected Systems Division. Kim is the author of the Laws of Identity which can be found on his blog, identityblog.com.

This issue also introduces Diego Dagum as the new editor of The Architecture Journal, who takes the baton from Simon Guest (the only person at Microsoft who can logon as 'guest').

Diego is calling for papers on Green Computing for a future Journal issue, abstracts due by 10 September 2009. If you've got something to contribute, let him know.