Single Sign-On Simplified With AD FS 2.0

Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 (AD FS 2.0) has been finalized and is now available for download. This is the server part of how you can handle identity in your applications.

AD FS 2.0 is a role in Windows Server that simplifies access and single sign-on to both on-premises and cloud-based applications. Using “claims-based” identity technology, it helps enable secure business collaboration and productivity within the enterprise, across organizations, and on the Web.

Some of the top scenarios AD FS 2.0 will support are:

• Collaboration with Office documents and SharePoint across companies with single sign-on access.
• Single sign-on access to hosted/cloud services, extended from on-premises Active Directory to Microsoft (or other) cloud services.
• Implementation of access security and management policies to many different applications with varied security requirements.

Overall, AD FS 2.0 will help you streamline user access management with a simpler, unified approach and native single sign-on. It builds on Active Directory and interoperates with other directories via WS* and SAML support, too.

You can get AD FS 2.0 at Federation Services.

Read the AD FS 2.0 datasheet to learn more.

About Active Directory Federated Services 2.0 and Windows Identity Foundation

Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 is a security token service for IT that issues and transforms claims and other tokens, manages user access and enables federation and access management for simplified single sign-on.

.NET developers use Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) to externalize identity logic from their application, improving developer productivity, enhancing application security, and enabling interoperability. Enjoy greater productivity, applying the same tools and programming model to build on-premises software as well as cloud services. Create more secure applications by reducing custom implementations and using a single simplified identity model based on claims. Enjoy greater flexibility in application deployment through interoperability based on industry standard protocols, allowing applications and identity infrastructure services to communicate via claims. See Windows Identity Foundation Simplifies User Access for Developers.

Learn more about how you can use AD FS 2 and WIF in your applications at Identity Developer Training Course on Channel 9. You will find a developer training kit and hands on labs.

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation