Single sign-on

SSO is an authentication process that allows users to log into multiple applications or systems using a single set of credentials. SSO works on a trust-based model that's established between the system that has user credentials, called the Identity Provider (IdP), and the service/application that the user wants to access, called the Service Provider (SP). Typically, the SSO mechanism is implemented using the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) protocol.

Google Workspace supports SSO via the SAML protocol. This typically means that you will have to log in just once to be able to access all the supported applications.

As we noted in the previous chapter, Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) can be used to sync user details and credentials from AD into Google Cloud Identity. Besides AD, other IdPs such as Ping Identity and Okta can be configured as the user directory and sync identities to Google Cloud.

Administrators can remove dependencies on other...