Conversations from #ISTE10 on Federated Identity

At the Dell and Microsoft ISTE 2010 reception, I met a lot of people who love Dell and Microsoft.  The live band was hot too.

During one of my conversations, I was asked about how to solve an identity federation scenario.  Essentially, the technology coordinator wanted to give students and teachers access to Microsoft Online Services without the prompt for LiveID credentials (e.g. @hotmail.com, @live.com).  Faculty and students would use their domain credentials to authenticate to Microsoft Online Services.

I told him that he needed the Microsoft Services Connector.  Well, the Microsoft Services Connector is now a component of Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0.   You can download AD FS 2.0 from Microsoft free-of-charge.

The solution requires the implementation of at least one federation server in your school or universities and use of the Windows Live tool called the Microsoft Online Services Federation Utility Technology Preview.  These technologies allow you to establish a trust relationship between Microsoft and your institutional domain.

The document you will need to implement this can be found at Bing: “How to Configure AD FS 2.0 to Provide SSO Access to Microsoft Online Services”

For more information on AD FS, visit here.