Option 1: Configuring single sign-on based on Security Assertion Markup Language token

You can configure single sign-on based on a Security Access Markup Language (SAML 2.0) token and an external Identity Provider server.

The following entities participate in the exchange of authentication data:
Application User
A person who uses several applications in one domain and wants to single sign-on to these applications.
Service Provider
The application that requests the authentication service. In this case, it is License Metric Tool.
Identity Provider
The service that authenticates the application users. License Metric Tool supports only Active Directory Federation Services.

A web user authenticates to a SAML Identity Provider, which produces a SAML assertion. A SAML assertion is an XML-formatted token that is used to transfer user identity and attribute information from the Identity Provider of a user to a trusted Service Provider as part of a single sign-on request. The Service Provider consumes the SAML assertion to establish a security context for the web user.

The following diagram shows steps that are performed during a typical single sign-on based on the exchange of the SAML token.
Exchange of Security Access Markup Language token

Procedure

The following scenario presents a typical workflow of configuring License Metric Tool to work with Active Directory Federation Services. However, you might want to use other software products for enabling single sign-on in your infrastructure.