CAF – What Standards and Profiles does FIM use?

The FIM service implements the OASIS SAML2 specification and participates globally with other SAML2 federations through inter-federation with eduGAIN. Inter-federation is how CANARIE exchanges FIM Identity Provider (IdP) and Service Provider (SP) records in an interoperable fashion. To do this we use the following profiles:

• SAML2int.org’s interoperability deployment profile
• eduGAIN’s deployment profiles
  • eduGAIN Metadata Profile
  • eduGAIN Attribute Profile
  • eduGAIN SAML2.0 WebSSO Profile:
• Kantara’s SAML v2 Implementation Profile for Federation Interoperability

The purpose of service profiles is described and illustrated by Kantara, below:

• “An interoperability profile shall achieve conformance with the specification, is not too restrictive leaving many choices. It targets developers.
• A deployment profile leaves no or only few options. Its audience are deployers.
• SAML conformance profiles have the same intent as an interoperability profile, but are too loose in V2.0 to ensure interoperability.”