Pages of Nested XML

Compliance and Risk Management for Technical Professionals · 2:52

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Lyrics

[Verse 1]
When you write a simple rule in XACML's way
Pages of nested XML fill up your day
What should be clean becomes a maze
Of tags and attributes that nobody can phrase
The specification needs explanation just to read
A basic policy becomes a complex deed

[Chorus]
Three weaknesses holding XACML down
Verbose and complex, hard to come around
Narrow scope, just access control alone
While newer solutions have clearly grown
XML verbosity, complexity's weight
Limited domain makes it second-rate

[Verse 2]
It's narrowly focused on one control domain
Authorization decisions are all it can claim
Can't express risk management or incident response
Change control policies get no correspondence
Like Cedar it serves just one single need
While comprehensive controls require more to succeed

[Chorus]
Three weaknesses holding XACML down
Verbose and complex, hard to come around
Narrow scope, just access control alone
While newer solutions have clearly grown
XML verbosity, complexity's weight
Limited domain makes it second-rate

[Bridge]
Dozens of combining algorithms to learn
Function types and profiles at every turn
The barrier to entry keeps people away
While OPA Rego wins the modern day
Performance concerns at enterprise scale
Make XACML's promise often fail

[Verse 3]
It's lost its mindshare to approaches new
Cedar and Rego offer cleaner view
XML feels dated in our JSON age
Cloud-native systems turn a different page
Remote attribute calls can slow things down
High-throughput systems avoid its crown

[Chorus]
Three weaknesses holding XACML down
Verbose and complex, hard to come around
Narrow scope, just access control alone
While newer solutions have clearly grown
XML verbosity, complexity's weight
Limited domain makes it second-rate

[Outro]
From verbose XML to narrow scope
Complex standards give little hope
Three weaknesses clear as day
Why XACML fades away

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