Identity and the Windows Azure Platform

Whether you are looking at reusing your on-premises identity for SSO in the cloud or you are searching for a way to handle access control for your REST services, in this unit you will find useful indications on how to address your identity challenges with Windows Identity Foundation in Windows Azure or taking advantage of the AppFabric Access Control

Hands-On Labs

  • Authenticating Users in a Windows Phone 7 App via Access Control Service, OData Services and Windows Azure

    In this hands-on lab you will extend a simple Windows Phone 7 application and associated Windows Azure-hosted service by integrating ACS authentication in the user experience and leverage it for securing service calls.

  • Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role Application

    This hands-on lab provides step-by-step guides for hosting in Windows Azure (WAZ) a Web application accepting identities from an external identity provider: with the authentication functions being performed by an external identity provider, you are now free to focus on the business function of your application instead of worrying of low level details. As you will learn while you go though the lab, this is easily accomplished by taking advantage of Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), formerly known as Geneva, for enhancing your web site.

  • Web Services and Identity in Windows Azure

    This lab is a step by step guide that will help you to use claims-based identity for handling authentication and access management for your WCF services hosted in Windows Azure; it will show you how you can still take advantage of local identities for authenticating your users, despite the fact that your services are now hosted in the cloud. The lab will walk you through all the practicalities of taking advantage of the unique characteristics of the Windows Azure environment from your Windows Identity Foundation settings.

  • Introduction to the AppFabric Access Control Service 2.0

    In this introductory hands-on lab you will learn how to take advantage of the ACS for outsourcing authentication, managing multiple identity sources, performing some basic authorization tasks and take control of the authentication experience. You will discover that it takes less to do it than to describe it!

  • Use Access Control Service to Federate with Multiple Business Identity Providers

    In this intermediate hands-on lab you will learn how to use the Access Control Service for managing trust relationships with multiple business identity providers. Users from two different organizations will be able to gain authenticated access to your application; however you will not be required to write any special code for handling the differences between the two. You will learn how to use ACS for establishing relationships and normalizing attributes without having to touch your application’s source code. The lab will demonstrate how to configure ACS both via the AppFabric portal and the management API. It is not strictly necessary, but it is a good idea to take a look at the ACS Labs introductory lab before going through this hands-on lab. If your solution requires to authenticate users both from web and business identity providers, you can mix and match the tasks you'll go through in the two labs.