Use of SSO? How is it different from LDAP authenication to vCenter server?

[Sam30]

I've been trying to understand how exactly Single Sign On is helping me, although I know SSO installation is not optional but I'd like to understand what is the use of it.

Say in my infra I've my two vCenter servers joined to domain attached in linked mode & access to vCenter is granted to domain users/groups.

So now if I've granted access to vCenter to a particular domain user/groups, all they need to do is use their domain credentials to login via vSphere client & that's it.

He gets access to all the required things & doesn't need to re-login any where else to access the components & that's what I guess SSO means, logging in once & have access to all required components.?

Please let me know how is it different then a normal domain authentication which was & is there before SSO was introduced ?

[DavoudTeimouri]

Hi Sam,

vSphere 5.1 introduces vCenter Single Sign On service as part of the vCenter Server management infrastructure. This change affects vCenter Server installation, upgrading, and operation. The vCenter Single Sign On authentication service makes the VMware cloud infrastructure platform more secure by allowing the various vSphere software components to communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.

Useful links:

1. VMware vSphere 5.1
2. vCenter Single Sign On aka SSO, what do I recommend?
3. vXpress: Part 2 - Architecting vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) – A Scoop from my vForum Prezo

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Davoud Teimouri - http://www.teimouri.net - @davoud_teimouri