Collaboration Oriented Architecture (COA) is a computer system that is designed to collaborate, or use services, from systems that are outside of the operators control.
[1] Bill Gates and Craig Mundie (Microsoft) [2][3] clearly articulated the need for people to work outside of their organizations in a secure and collaborative manner in their opening keynote to the RSA Security Conference in February 2007.
[4] Successful implementation of a Collaboration Oriented Architecture implies the ability to successfully inter-work securely over the Internet and will typically mean the resolution of the problems that come with de-perimeterisation.
The term Collaboration Oriented Architectures [5] was defined and developed in a meeting of the Jericho Forum at a meeting held at HSBC on 6 July 2007.
The key elements that qualify a security architecture as a Collaboration Oriented Architecture are as follows; Working in a collaborative multi-sourced environment implies the need for authentication, authorization and accountability which must interoperate / exchange outside of your locus / area of control.