Unless you are living under the rock, being an online business, you most probably be aware of the latest adoption of Single Sign-On solution. But is it that simple to find out the ideal Single Sign-On that fits for all? Providing the numerous implementations of SSO, finding the original/ideal SSO solution is critical. To that end, this article is dedicated to highlight the major difference between two most common Single sign on solutions – Enterprise SSO and Web SSO.

Enterprise SSO :

Enterprise SSO is the one implemented internally by the organizations. The main thing about SSO is the preference of security over customer experience and to that end, many a times, an additional authentication layer in terms of biometric authentication or smart card based authentication is introduced. Enterprise SSO, makes use of an agent that presents login credential on the behalf of user. Now since, the employees of an organization request resource access from their work station only, enterprise SSO stores the details on the workstation and monitors user activity.

Web SSO :

Now talking about Web Single Sign-On, it is more of a solution for end users. Web SSO is implemented by customer facing businesses which is why the Web SSO is location and device independent. This means no matter which device and which location user is using to request access, the solution provides it making it a cross domain functionality. Now even though the resources are typically stored in one domain, the requests can be received from more than one networks. Web SSO is basically browser based.

The major difference between enterprise SSO and web SSO :

1. The major difference between enterprise SSO and web SSO is the preference. While enterprise SSO is majorly focused on security, web SSO works for enhancing customer experience without compromising security.
2. The key aim of enterprise SSO is to reduce help desk cost by minimizing “forgot password” requests. On the other hand, the key aim to implement Web SSO is to attain unified customer view in order to craft more user oriented marketing strategies and offer personalized experience.
3. A web single sign-on solution comes with features like centralized profile updation regardless of the device user is updating data from. But enterprise SSO, is expected to provide functionalities to enhance security like adding extra layer, etc.
4. While using enterprise single sign-on solution, agents are installed on workstation and this agent monitors the login activity of users and automate it. On the other hand, web single sign-on solution makes use of different architecture based protocols like SAML (Security assertion markup language), OAuth, LDAP, etc
5. Enterprise SSO tool is generally restricted to the enterprise level which means few interconnections to other networks. But unlike this, Web SSO is designed for an expansive system which means login can happen from anywhere and via any device.

So friends, I hope this clears out the differences between Web SSO and Enterprise SSO. If you have any query, drop them in the comment box below.