Chapter 11

Securing Cloud Solutions Using Claims-Based Authentication

What's in this chapter?

  • Understanding claims-based identity
  • Understanding the relationships among identity providers, federation providers, and relying party applications for building solutions
  • Configuring a trust relationship between Active Directory Federation Services v2.0 (AD FS v2.0) and the Azure AppFabric Access Control service
  • Building a claims-based Azure web application that is accessed from within SharePoint with single sign-on

We have all encountered claims-based identity through the course of our daily activities without even really recognizing it. It can be as simple as showing some form of identification in exchange for a stamp on the hand to a sophisticated process that formally checks and validates multiple forms of identification before providing a smart card that allows access to top-secret locations. Claims-based security is about one entity trusting another entity that issues information about a subject. Then, in turn, the first entity issues information about the subject that can be relied upon by those that choose to trust it.

To implement this claims-based pattern with technology so that it has the broadest reach and adoption possible, you must use interoperable data structures for the information and protocols for handling these data structures that are based on open standard specifications. Open, standards-based specifications can be implemented in any number of programming languages ...

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