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For example, Google Apps, Facebook Login, Linked In
and Microsoft Live ID provide centralized

authentication for third-party web applications where
users can log in using their existing identities .

4. Inter-Federation

INFED is part of an inter-federation. Inter-federation is a
means for getting access of the other federations
resources (If they allowed any restricted content to only,

simplifying access to content, services and resources for
the global research and education community.
Success Authentication to publisher site
eduGAIN, a non-profitentity, is playing a major role to
connect all the federation around the world. It helps the
researchers and faculty to access online services and
manages all the service providers metadata in common

place. It is also giving service providers access to a larger
pool of users globally, and allows users to access
resources of collaborative research institutions .

4.1 Benefits of Inter-Federation

Today, online services are crucial to research and higher
education. Majority of the academic activities such as

mail, teaching and conferencing, Massive Online Open
Courses (MOOCs), Data analysis, e-Journals are made
Successful Logged in via shibboleth accessible over Internet, directly to users including
students, teachers and researchers. Normally, for each
3. Single Sign-On (SSO)
services / application they have separate user account.

“One Login, Many Services”- users can access number But with just a single trusted identity, provided by their
of services by authenticating themselves only once. institution which is part of country-wide identity
Features of SSO are as follows, (I) Mitigate risk for access federation can serve the purpose of using same trusted
to 3rd-party sites (user passwords not stored or managed identity via single sign-on (SSO) across the
externally) , (ii) Minimal Disclosure of Identity, (iii) Time applications/services, this feature can be extended by
saving for entering passwords different service participating to inter-federations such as eduGAIN (a
providers, (iv) Cost saving for managing IT helpdesk for service developed within the GÉANT Project - a major

password issues collaboration between European national research and
education network (NREN) organisations and the
It shares centralized authentication servers such as
European Union), so that users can access services from
LDAP, Kerberos, Active Directory, etc. It will ensure that
other participating federations using same single sign-
users do not have to actively enter their credentials more
on (SSO).
than once else explicitly specified at time of first login.

18 Vol. 24, No. 2 (April to June, 2017)