Service Provider
A Service Provider is the application or target service that relies on an external identity system to authenticate users.
- Acronym
- SP
- Synonym
- SPRelying Party
Definition
A Service Provider, or SP, is the system that consumes assertions or tokens from an identity provider in order to grant access to users. In a federated model, the service provider delegates primary authentication and focuses on session establishment, access context, and application behavior.
Why it matters
The Service Provider is the consumption point of federated identity and must correctly interpret assertions.
The Ariovis perspective
Federation is an architecture choice, not a product checkbox. Ariovis assesses protocols, trust relationships, application constraints and migration paths before defining the target.
Related services
Common pitfalls
- A common pitfall is implementing SP-side session handling inconsistently with IdP session policy.
Standards and protocols
- SAML 2.0
- OpenID Connect
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