Distal, our solution for providing single sign-on between companies, makes it very easy for SaaS
providers to provide their customers single sign-on. The only thing required by their customers is
that they have a basic intranet portal (Microsoft, Domino, Java etc). The link to the SaaS application
is established using one clear text server side script that they add to their intranet. The script is
based on the common scripting technology of each intranet platform (ASP, JSP etc), which is familiar
to each customer. They can therefore review and deploy it in 15 minutes, without assistance. For
SaaS providers, rolling out Distal is a matter of a few days, depending a little on the access management
of their applications. When it is done, SaaS providers can automate most of the creation and maintenance of
customer user profiles, based on current information in their respective user directories.
Distal and other alternatives to let SaaS customers use their internal user directories to control access
to and get single sign-on to SaaS applicationsis discussed in an article, which was published in
SaaS Developer's Journal in April 2008. A link to the article can be found below.