In this article, we will explain what SSO is and how your company can use it.
What is SSO?
SSO, or Single Sign-On, is a system that allows users to access multiple applications and services with just a single set of credentials. Instead of having to remember several different passwords for each system they use, users only need to authenticate once and gain access to all other systems integrated with SSO.
What is it used for?
SSO is used to simplify the authentication process, increase security, and improve the user experience when accessing various systems and applications. It is particularly useful in corporate environments where employees need to use multiple tools and platforms daily.
Benefits of SSO
Greater user convenience: Eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords, reducing frustration and saving time.
Enhanced security: Centralizes access and authentication management, making it easier to enforce security policies and detect suspicious activities.
Reduced IT costs: Decreases the number of support calls related to forgotten passwords and simplifies the user account management process.
Our goal is to define how you can create an application capable of communicating with the Axur Platform and providing authentication data for your users, but before that, we need to define some terms that are widely used in this context.
Terminology
If you’ve heard of SSO, you know that some terms appear quite frequently in various contexts and tutorials on the subject. If you haven’t, that’s okay, we’ll explain some of the most used words, along with their meanings.
SSO (Single Sign-On): A system that allows access to multiple applications with just one login. It simplifies and increases security.
Identity Provider (IdP): A system that stores and manages user identities. This is the service that will perform your authentication and store your data. Famous examples of possible providers are Google, Okta and Microsoft Entra ID.
Service Provider (SP): The application the user wants to access. The service provider trusts the IdP with the authentication process, and the two will exchange messages when a user tries to log in to the application. In our case, the SP would be the Axur Platform!
SAML 2.0: A standard protocol for exchanging authentication information between IdP and SP. It is through the SAML protocol that the two parties can communicate in a standardized way.
Metadata: These are usually files in .xml format that contain the information responsible for identifying both SPs and IdPs.
Credentials: Information used to verify the user’s identity, such as username and password.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at [email protected] 😊