SSO & Federation

Overview

SSO lets users sign in once for many applications; federation extends that trust across separate organizations — both centralize authentication but concentrate risk into a single identity system.

Key concepts

• SSO centralizes authentication via an identity provider
• Federation: trust between organizations
• SAML, OAuth, OpenID Connect

How it works

Single Sign-On (SSO)

SSO lets users sign in once and access multiple applications without re-entering credentials — improving convenience and reducing password reuse and reset requests, by centralizing authentication through an identity provider.

Example: a student signs in once with a school account, and that same login provides access to email, cloud storage, learning platforms, video conferencing, and other approved services — no separate password per app.

Federation

Federation is a trust relationship between separate organizations, domains, or identity systems, letting one organization accept identity information from another trusted identity provider — so users can access external applications using their existing organizational credentials.

Example: an employee signs in through their company identity provider, which sends trusted authentication information to a cloud application; the cloud app accepts that authentication and grants access based on assigned permissions.

Common federation standards