More and more, universities, companies and government agencies offer services and collaborate online. Users typically access both online resources inside and outside their organizations to do their work. In the past, each of these services required its own ID and password and, for the user, that meant adding another set of credentials to that collection of sticky notes. For the institution, closing the security holes and just keeping up with the access changes for the services on and off campus was quite a challenge.
Shibboleth Single Sign-on and Federating Software was developed specifically to address the challenges of:
- multiple passwords required for multiple applications
- scaling the account management of multiple applications
- security issues associated with accessing third-party services
- privacy
- interoperability within and across organizational boundaries
- enabling institutions to choose their authentication technology
- enabling service providers to control access to their resources
- facilitating the rapid and effective integration of disparate third-party services (e.g. cloud computing applications), leveraging campus identity management and trust services
An individual uses his or her campus login and password to access resources offered by the institution and provider organizations. And campus IT shops can use their authentication technology of choice - Shibboleth sits on top and provides the web single sign-on functionality.
Links of Interest:
- Identity Management and Trust Services: Foundations for Cloud Computing
Jack Suess and Kevin Morooney, EDUCAUSE Review, September/October 2009 - For additional information tailored to specific audiences, refer to the Info Centers.
