1.0 Introduction to Application Connectors

As an administrator, you have many users in your user stores that require access to many different web applications. The identity federation enables you to provide single sign-on (SSO) to your users. For more information about federation, see Configuring Authentication in the NetIQ Access Manager 5.0 Administration Guide.

Access Manager provides a simplified way using connectors to give users a secure SSO access to different web applications. Access Manager uses connectors to establish the connection between Access Manager and applications. An application connector contains pre-integrated configurations for a specific SaaS application.

An application connector helps you achieve the following objectives:

  • Reduce the complexity in setting up SSO and account management to SaaS applications.

  • Deploy integrations quickly without doing any application or protocol-specific configuration.

Access Manager supports the following types of application connectors:

  • Single Sign-On Assistants Connectors: These connectors work with SSO Assistant extensions for browsers to securely collect, store, retrieve, and replay the users’ authentication information for the application you select.

    For more information, see Section 3.0, Single Sign-On Assistant Connectors.

  • Federation Connectors: (SAML 2.0 and WS-Fed) These connectors simplify the configuration process of establishing a federated connection between applications or web services and Access Manager.

    For more information, see Section 5.0, SAML Connectors

  • Federation and Account Management Connectors: (SAML 2.0) In addition to simplifying Access Manager configuration, these connectors can also configure SaaS Account Manager (SAM) in Access Manager to automatically provision user accounts at the corresponding SaaS providers.

    To provision SAML accounts by using SAM, you must first purchase and deploy the SAM appliance and configure the appropriate SAM connector for the SAML application. For more information, see Section 6.0, SAML/Account Management Connectors.

You can customize application connectors based on your requirements. See Section 4.0, Custom Connectors.

When you configure a connector for an application, the system automatically creates an appmark for this application and adds it on the User Portal page. For more information about appmarks, see Appmarks in the NetIQ Access Manager 5.0 Administration Guide.