Secure implementation of Enterprise single sign-on product in an organization

Single Sign-On is a very important component of the security architecture of an organization. In IT, it is generally believed that it is expensive to deploy an enterprise Single Sign-On solution that is secure and scalable. However, there is a growing awareness in IT management about the advantages of implementation of enterprise Single Sign-On. It can be overwhelming for project managers to understand what it takes to build a secure Single Sign-On solution and whether it is viable to build the solution in-house or to buy a product and implement it. The topic - 'buy versus build'is not discussed in this paper. There are a lot of resources on the Internet that can help to educate you on this topic. The references section at the end of this paper provides a link (reference #3) to one such resource. Even after voting to 'buy' it can take significant efforts to evaluate the products and choose the SSO product that is suitable for the organization. This paper aims to usher IT managers developers and other resources interested in such a project by providing a blue print of the effort needed to implement an enterprise Single Sign-On solution with security in mind.