Active Directory Federation Services

With Office 365, Microsoft offers a single account sign-on experience, or Single Sign-On. Microsoft leverages Active Directory Federation Service 2.0, 2.1, or 3.0+ (AD FS) to provide this single sign-on experience. AD FS is not the only SSO solution that works with Office 365. There are many other supported solutions, but those solutions typically come at an additional cost. It's important that you evaluate your future use of SSO to determine whether AD FS or another SSO solution is the right fit for your organization.

AD FS enables organizations to connect their existing AD forest to Microsoft's federation infrastructure, creating a secure trust relationship with Microsoft. Once your organization is connected to this service, you can then allow your users to log on to the Office 365 services you provide, with their Active Directory credentials. There are many benefits to organizations providing this type of access. These benefits include:

• Simplified logon...