Federation Security Services Guide › Federation Security Services Overview › Federation Security Services Concepts › Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)

The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is a standard developed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). It is an industry standard that defines an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information.

SAML defines assertions as a means to pass security information about users between entities. SAML assertions are XML documents that contain information about a specific subject, such as a user. An assertion can contain several different internal statements about authentication, authorization, and attributes.

SAML defines two browser-based protocols that specify how SAML assertions are passed between partners to facilitate single sign-on.

The profiles are:

• Browser/artifact profile—defines a SAML artifact as a reference to a SAML assertion.
• Browser/POST profile—returns a response that contains an assertion

Note: For SAML 2.0, the artifact and POST profiles are referred to as HTTP bindings.

For SAML specifications and background documentation as well as information on SAML profiles, go to site for the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (Oasis).