The Concept of Trust

Federating identities assumes existing trust relationships between participants. This trust is usually defined through business arrangements or contracts that describe the technical, operational, and legal responsibilities of each party and the consequences for not completing them. When defined, a trust relationship allows one organization to trust the user authentication and authorization decisions of another organization. This trust then enables a user to log in to one site and, if desired, access a trusted site without reauthentication.

Ensure that trust agreements are in force before configuring circles of trust with OpenSSO Enterprise and going live. The Liberty Alliance Project has created a support document for helping to establish these trust arrangements. The Liberty Trust Model Guidelines document is located on the Support Documents and Utility Schema Files page of the Liberty Alliance Project web site.