Implementation Guide › Performance Tuning › Application Tier Performance › Authentication Guidelines › SiteMinder Policy Objects and Performance Roadmap › Realms and Authentication Performance

Realms and Authentication Performance

The following factors affect user authentication performance at the realm level. Consider each as you configure realms:

• Credential collection—Realms are associated with a specific authentication scheme, some of which require the use of credential collectors. Agents protecting resources with these types of authentication schemes redirect users to the credential collector to gather the credentials. Gathering credentials adds an additional step to the authentication process.

  Note: For more information about configuring authentication schemes, see the Policy Server Configuration Guide. For more information about using credential collectors, see the Web Agent Configuration Guide.

• Persistent Sessions—When SiteMinder authenticates a user, the Policy Server issues a session ticket. A session ticket contains basic information about the user and the authentication context of the user. By default, SiteMinder implements session management through non–persistent sessions, for which the Agent writes the session ticket to a cookie in the web browser of the user.

  Some SiteMinder features require persistent sessions. You can configure a realm for Persistent Sessions. Agents protecting resources in this realm write the session ticket a SiteMinder session store, which results in additional requests to the session store for each authentication.

  Important! Persistent sessions can have a significant impact on performance.

  Note: For more information about user sessions, see the Policy Server Configuration Guide.

• Authentication Events—By default, a realm is configured to Process Authentication Events. This setting lets you define rules that fire when a user authenticates or fails to authenticate. Policy evaluation logic applies to all realms configured to process Authentication Events. This logic consumes system resources and can result in user directory requests.

  Evaluate the need for event actions that occur when users authenticate to gain access to a resource. If you do not require authentication actions, disable Authentication Events for the realm to speed the authentication step.

  Note: For more information about realms, see the Policy Server Configuration Guide.