How it works

The UK federation facilitates access control for web resources, by using a set of standards called SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language). The federation is software agnostic, although the most widely-deployed software products are developed by the Shibboleth Project.

Some resources:

• What is Identity Federation? - a 5 minute introductory video from one of the pioneers of the UK federation (now working at GÉANT)
• The Shibboleth Concepts pages provide information about SAML Single Sign-On. Much of the "Understanding the Basics" and "More Concepts" sections are software agnostic.
• How to benefit from interfederating through eduGAIN describes how the UK federation and other Research and Education federations interoperate.
• UK federation Service documents - in-depth documents about the UK federation.