What is Federation and Web SSO?
The proliferation of the Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription model has made it very simple for organizations to purchase and start using applications. This, of course, may be done with or without IT’s blessing, but typically will fall on the IT organization to support these applications. With these applications comes several challenges, but the one challenge that has the most end-user impact is the logon experience. How are users logging on, what are the password policies, how are users provisioned or terminated, and how is user information updated? These are just a few of the questions that IT needs to answer in regards to the applications.
Federation, or Web Single Sign-On (SSO), is the infrastructure glue that integrates your on-premises directory to these cloud applications. Federation applications is the process of enabling directory-disconnected applications, such as cloud applications, to leverage your on-premises directory, such as Active Directory, to authenticate users. The end result is that your users will login with their corporate credentials, smart card, etc., and not have to worry about remembering different user accounts and passwords. IT support does not have to worry about resetting user passwords, weak password policies, or access termination.
Celestix Federated Solution
The Celestix Federated is an all-in-one, purpose-built solution designed to ease federation implementation and ongoing support needs. Built on the mature Windows Server technologies, the Celestix Federated enables companies to quickly implement a federation services infrastructure using a wizard driven process. It simplifies integration for customers looking to implement federation with Office 365, or are looking to migrate to a new version of Windows Server Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS).
Using our proprietary web management interface, organizations can quickly set up the Celestix A Series with federation, install and configure the Office 365 Directory Sync tool, and configure Office 365 to support federated logins. This whole process takes 15-20 minutes, and is significantly reduced from performing these steps manually.
Celestix recognizes that implementation is only the first step, and to help you support the solution, we offer dashboard reporting of key features and service state. We also offer user auditing and reporting to help you understand and troubleshoot user issues.
Here are a few key features and highlights about our Celestix Federated Solution
- Increased security with on-premises deployment – the corporate AD stores and controls the password policy
- Users are authenticated via on-premises AD services
- Single sign-on improves efficiency and ease of use
- Wizards reduce complexity to deploy identity federation
- Seamless access to resources crosses organizational boundaries
- Multifactor authentication strengthens access security
- Infrastructure oversight with reporting, monitoring, and alerting
- High availability adds resilience and scalability offers flexibility
