Single sign-on systems-the technologies and the products

In simple terms, single sign-on means just what it says: a user of a distributed system who may potentially be using a variety of different application services spread over different end-systems needs to sign on, i.e. authenticate himself, only once to the distributed system as a whole, and the results of that authentication are automatically propagated to the end-systems as required. In reality, of course, this simple concept conceals a whole gamut of complications and security implications. This paper explains the topic, the potential usability and manageability benefits, threats, and what products are on the market