A3.1 Meta-data Use-Cases / A3.2 Meta-data exchange Use-Case

["Mishra, Prateek" <pmishra@netegrity.com>]

This note describes the meta-data specification and exchange use-cases:

 

(1)  Meta-data:  An Identity provider (IdP) and Service Provider (SP) agree to support one or more SAML 2.0 profiles. A certain amount of static configuration information describing profiles implemented, optional parts of the profile implemented/unimplemented,  optional parts of SAML assertions used in the profiles, service end-points and trust relationships needs to be captured and exchanged between the IdP and the SP. The meta-data schema provides an XML representation for this information.

 

Given an (IdP, SP) pair, it should be possible to extract the relevant meta-data as a single element from the representation. It should further be possible to isolate the data "belonging" to the services implemented by the SP as an element (SP metadata). It should further be possible to isolate the data "belonging" to the services implemented by the IdP as an element (IdP metadata)

 

    

     (2) Meta-data Exchange:  Typically,  we expect agreements between IdP and SP to be made offline and meta-data to be constructed as part of this agreement. However, it would be convenient if there were some means of retrieving the SP metadata component of the (IdP, SP) metadata from a site administered by the SP. Similarly, it would be convenient if there were some means of retrieving the IdP metadata component of the (IdP, SP) metadata from a site administered by the IdP. The specification should also indicate appropriate measures to secure this exchange.

 

 

 

Prateek Mishra

Director, Tech&Arch

Netegrity

 

p: 781-530-6564

c: 617-875-4970