Identity Federation

Identity federation is a concept which came into picture during the end of the first decade, when Facebook and Google enabled different sites to use their services to get authorization to access specific user data. Previously, the idea of Single-Sign-On or SSO was prevalent, where an organization maintains an active directory of active user details and grants access to different application within the organization by authenticating only once.

There are various terms that are used when talking about Identity Federation. Following are some useful ones and their brief explanation in the realm of user authentication and authorization:

Service Provider:

Identity Provider:

SAML:

OAuth 2.0:

OpenId Connect: