and identity management. Federated identity systems link a user's attributes to multiple systems, such as with single sign-on technologies. It is also used to manage pricing in service industries, where the requirement of bundling services and invoice customers according to these service-bundles needs independently, across product areas organized processing systems to syndicate their service definitions and pricing determination. It allows the introduction of new pricing models in market-oriented time. A holistic customer view as well as a detailed and traceable price calculation shall allow for transparent information towards the customer and the corporation. Benefits The benefits of being as independent of a global authority as possible (where a global authority may be a central computer system, central organization or central process management system), are expected to outweigh problems caused by misunderstandings and incompatibilities. There are different areas where independently solved problems can reduce complexity and increase agility. Independence Lifecycle independence (LI) means that each local team can define its own lifecycle concept, roadmap and release plan for its product, independently from others' products. Operational independence (OI) means that in case of emergency each local team, having the know-how about their products and computer systems, is able to fix and operate them without relying on others' knowledge and willingness to support them. Platform independence (PI) means that system and application platforms can be mixed as well as computer languages as long as they are able to interpret the model and produce the expected results. History Federated architecture as database architecture was first introduced by Denis Heimbigner 1982 and 1985 with the title: A Federated Architecture for Information Management: "This federated database architecture allows a collection of database systems (components) to unite into a loosely coupled federation in order to share and exchange information. The term federation refers to the collection of constituent databases participating in a federated database." References External links Gartner on Federated Architecture Zachman on Federated Architecture Discussion about federated architecture implemented by organizations, Meta Group, 1999 Richard P. Martin on Federated Computing Architectures Federated database architecture by IBM Federated portal architecture by SAP TOGAF Version 9 Enterprise Edition Enterprise architecture frameworks