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Workload Identity in a Multi System Environment (WIMSE) Architecture — draft-ietf-wimse-arch#

IETF 123 (Madrid) digest Program Core pick Madrid · 19–25 July 2025

Slides Session recording Materials

  • Tier: Core
  • Why: This is the architectural anchor for standardizing how workloads get and use identity across multi-cloud, multi-tenant, multi-service deployments — the exact problem SPIFFE/SPIRE solved proprietarily. An IETF-stream architecture means the surrounding protocol drafts (below) have a shared frame, and implementations stop being per-vendor.
  • What: An architecture document defining how to convey workload identity and security-context information, where a workload is software running for a specific purpose, possibly across many instances. (from abstract only)
  • How: It scopes the problem and defines the component model that the credential, token, and authentication drafts plug into, rather than specifying wire formats itself.
  • Where applicable: Broadly applicable to any container-orchestration or microservice estate; vendor-neutral by design. This is the document to read first before the rest of the WIMSE set.