What does SAML mean in General Computing?

Security Assertion Markup Language

Security Assertion Markup Language is an XML-based open standard data format for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, in particular, between an identity provider and a service provider. SAML is a product of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. SAML dates from 2001; the most recent update of SAML is from 2005. The single most important problem that SAML addresses is the web browser single sign-on problem. Single sign-on solutions are abundant at the intranet level but extending these solutions beyond the intranet has been problematic and has led to the proliferation of non-interoperable proprietary technologies. The SAML specification defines three roles: the principal, the identity provider, and the service provider. In the use case addressed by SAML, the principal requests a service from the service provider. The service provider requests and obtains an identity assertion from the identity provider. On the basis of this assertion, the service provider can make an access control decision - in other words it can decide whether to perform some service for the connected principal.

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