Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Next Generation Access Control (NGAC)

Abstract

Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Next Generation Access Control (NGAC) are very different attribute based access control standards with similar goals and objectives. An objective of both is to provide a standardized way for expressing and enforcing vastly diverse access control policies in support of various types of data services. The two standards differ with respect to the manner in which access control policies and attributes are specified and managed, and decisions are computed and enforced. This paper is presented as a consolidation and refinement of public draft NIST SP 800-178 [21], describing, and comparing these two standards.