Leveraging Identity Federation

Identity federation enables partner organizations to trust and share digital identities and attributes of employees, customers, and suppliers across domains. Identity federation is the means to providing single sign-on among partner sites.

Through identity federation, transactions involving multiple organizations can be managed and completed using a single identity. Customers or members can access a variety of online services through just one organization, using just one password. And employees of that organization and its partners can be given secure, as-needed access to selected information on partner sites. A federated identity allows a user from one federation partner to seamlessly access resources from another partner in a secure and trusted manner.

Why We Need It

Industries such as telecommunications or financial services are eager to meet customers' demands for online services. To meet these needs, companies seek partnerships with other companies to deliver the widest variety of services to customers. The growing customer demand for everything from ringtones to on-demand video, from online banking to investments, and much more requires partners to join forces to compete successfully.

How It Works

Service providers and other companies have agreed to a common set of rules for sharing identity information securely and privately. Identity federation is based on these standards. They allow multiple partners to access one personal identity on multiple sites at the same time and to authenticate that identity in order to deliver services securely. A common set of standards allows partnerships to repeat the same information-sharing processes with every partner. Otherwise, anytime a company wanted to create a partnership, it would have to create a whole new set of processes, based on the prospective partner's IT infrastructure, security policies, and other unique characteristics. This quickly becomes impossible as the number of partners increases. But with standards, the ability to partner is infinitely scalable. Using federation standards, organizations can create circles of trust in which a given provider at the center of the circle, such as an wireless provider, is surrounded by and connected to a multitude of other companies that offer value-added services the provider wants to deliver to customers.

How Identity Federation Can Benefit Your Business

The following are ways in which OpenSSO Enterprise identity federation can create a wide variety of new business opportunities for your company.

• Creates new revenue streams

  Identity federation means being able to create new sources of revenue by quickly meeting customers' ever-growing demand for online services. In addition to applying a standard set of protocols across partner domains, identity federation automates many manual processes within a secure identity framework, helping to deliver revenue-enhancing services to customers more quickly

• Improves allocation of resources

  Some organizations may want to outsource certain operations so that they can focus their resources on core competencies. Identity federation enables organizations to easily turn over such operations to partners without fear of breaching information security or privacy.

• Reduces operational cost and complexity

  Identity federation enables organizations to collaborate freely without the cost, complexity, and limitations of compiling and sharing manual lists of users or using proprietary web access management tools. It also makes it easier to ensure the security and privacy of shared information.

• Improves user experience

  Identity federation promotes loyalty by enabling users such as customers, employees, and suppliers to enjoy more services and products, more quickly and easily than ever before. In particular, single sign-on enables an exceptional online experience, eliminating the need to use multiple passwords for access to online services and products.

• Enhances enterprise security

  Identity federation enables employees of partner organizations use only one login. When a user has just one password to remember, he or she is less likely to have two write down that password, thus reducing the risk of the password being used by unauthorized entities.