DOCS: OPA as External Policy Decision Point

site/content/in-dev/unreleased/managing-security/_index.md

@@ -21,8 +21,6 @@ title: Managing Security
 linkTitle: Managing Security
 type: docs
 weight: 550
----
-
-## [Access Control]({{< relref "access-control" >}})
-
-## [Authentication and Identity Providers]({{< relref "external-idp" >}})
+* [Access Control]({{< relref "access-control" >}})
+* [Authentication and Identity Providers]({{< relref "external-idp" >}})
+* [External Policy Decision Point]({{< relref "external-pdp" >}}) (PDP), including Open-Policy-Agent (OPA)

site/content/in-dev/unreleased/managing-security/access-control.md

@@ -28,6 +28,10 @@ This section provides information about how access control works for Apache Pola
 Polaris uses a role-based access control (RBAC) model in which the Polaris administrator assigns access privileges to catalog roles
 and then grants access to resources to principals by assigning catalog roles to principal roles.
 
+{{% alert title="Note" color="primary" %}}
+For advanced authorization scenarios requiring external policy management or integration with existing policy infrastructure, Polaris supports integration with external Policy Decision Points (PDPs) such as Open Policy Agent (OPA). See [External Policy Decision Point](../external-pdp/) for more information.
+{{% /alert %}}
+
 These are the key concepts to understanding access control in Polaris:
 
 - **Securable object**

site/content/in-dev/unreleased/managing-security/external-pdp/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+#
+title: External Policy Decision Point
+linkTitle: External PDP
+type: docs
+weight: 300
+---
+
+This section provides information about integrating Apache Polaris (Incubating) with external Policy Decision Points (PDPs) for authorization.
+
+## Overview
+
+By default, Apache Polaris uses an internal authorization system based on role-based access control (RBAC). For advanced use cases requiring external policy management, centralized authorization, or integration with existing policy infrastructure, Polaris supports integration with external Policy Decision Points (PDPs).
+
+## What is a Policy Decision Point?
+
+A Policy Decision Point (PDP) is a component that evaluates authorization requests against defined policies and returns authorization decisions (allow/deny). 
+
+Organizations may choose to use an external PDP instead of Polaris's internal authorization in order to leverage a centralized policy store that manages authorization policies across multiple services and applications.
+
+## Architecture
+
+When using an external PDP, Polaris delegates authorization decisions as follows:
+
+1. **Client request**: A client makes a request to Polaris (e.g., read a table)
+2. **Authorization check**: Polaris sends an authorization request to the external PDP
+3. **Policy evaluation**: The PDP evaluates the request against configured policies
+4. **Decision**: The PDP returns an allow/deny decision
+5. **Enforcement**: Polaris enforces the decision and proceeds or rejects the request
+
+```
+┌─────────┐          ┌─────────────┐         ┌──────────────┐
+│ Client  │─────────>│   Polaris   │────────>│ External PDP │
+│         │ Request  │             │ AuthZ   │              │
+│         │          │             │ Request │              │
+│         │<─────────│             │<────────│              │
+│         │ Response │             │ Decision│              │
+└─────────┘          └─────────────┘         └──────────────┘
+```
+
+## Available Implementations
+
+Apache Polaris currently supports the following external PDP integrations:
+
+- **[Open Policy Agent (OPA)]({{< relref "opa.md" >}})**: A general-purpose policy engine with a rich ecosystem and flexible policy language (Rego)
+
+## Configuration
+
+To enable external PDP integration, set the following configuration property:
+
+```properties
+polaris.authorization.type=<pdp-type>
+```
+
+Where `<pdp-type>` is the identifier for the PDP implementation (e.g., `opa`). The default value is `internal`.
+
+See the specific PDP documentation for detailed configuration options:
+
+- [OPA Configuration]({{< relref "opa.md#configuration-reference" >}})