NRENs (and their users) have been pioneers in the use of federated authentication to access web-based services that allow users to authenticate once, and then to have access to multiple services. This improves the experience for the user; it reduces the complexity and costs incurred in issuing and managing credentials, while providing accountability and protecting user privacy.

The aim of the Identity Federations' task is to expand the federated framework to encompass a greater variety of applications, such as those that are not running in the web space.

This task is also researching ways to ease the deployment of federated authentication and to develop a scalable model for interoperability of Identity Federations.

 
Results

• The task has developed a set of useful tools, called Federation Lab, to debug, verify and diagnose Identity Federation components being developed. The Federation Lab site will be at: https://www.fed-lab.org.
• Specifications for behaviours of SAML Metadata Aggregators have been written and are available in the Basic Metadata Aggregation Profile. This profile is being considered by cross-federations such as eduGAIN and Kalmar Union. The current version is at:
  https://fed-lab.org/best-practises/interoperable-saml-2-0-profile/.