SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language)

General definition

SAML 2.0 is the current version of the Security Assertion Markup Language, an XML-based standard published by OASIS in 2005. It defines a protocol for an identity provider (IdP), such as Okta, Azure AD or a corporate LDAP-backed IdP, to issue signed, tamper-evident assertions about a user’s identity and attributes, which a service provider (SP) trusts without requiring a separate login.

• Single sign-on: employees log in once to the corporate IdP and gain access to all SAML-connected applications
• Attribute passing: the IdP can include user attributes (email, role, department) in the assertion, allowing the SP to personalise or restrict access
• Federation: organisations can federate identity across company boundaries, enabling partner or customer access via their own IdP
• Session management: SAML includes logout flows that can terminate sessions across all connected SPs simultaneously

SAML is widely used in enterprise contexts and is often a procurement requirement for software sold into large organisations. An alternative with similar goals is OIDC (OpenID Connect), which uses JSON and OAuth 2.0 and is more common in modern cloud-native applications. Many platforms support both. Related concepts include social sign-on and JWT.

In the Ethora ecosystem

Enterprise deployments of Ethora are often required to integrate with the customer’s existing identity infrastructure. SAML SSO support allows employees or members to authenticate through their organisation’s IdP, so access control, user provisioning and deprovisioning stay inside the customer’s existing IT workflows.

This is particularly valuable for healthcare and financial services customers where user identity management is tightly controlled for compliance reasons. When combined with the audit log, SAML-backed authentication gives compliance teams a complete record of who accessed the system and when.