UniTo - eduGAIN
The Inter-Federation
eduGAIN is the inter-federation service that connects and enables cooperation among identity federations worldwide.
Access to eduGAIN is allowed only through an identity federation; therefore, participation requires membership in an existing federation. IDEM is a member of eduGAIN.
The operation of eduGAIN is essentially the same as that of identity federations such as IDEM, with the difference that the number of entities involved is the sum of the entities (Service Providers and Identity Providers) from all participating federations.
Benefits
The benefits of the inter-federation are numerous for end users, participating organisations and service providers:
- students, faculty members and researchers can access a vast number of resources dedicated to research and education
- service providers can reach dozens of identity federations through a single membership
- organisations can easily and scalably provide their users with access to global services without the costs associated with establishing dedicated connections.
Integrated authentication to services via eduGAIN
Alongside standard eduGAIN authentication (invoked directly by each inter-federation service), UniTo provides integrated eduGAIN authentication for certain services, managed through a dedicated gateway.