Question 3

Concordia's survey on federation technologies & deployments is here.

I find the results for the third question most interesting

3. How many identity-based federated relationships do you have?

A. As a Service Provider / Relying Party?
                 a. One     7
                 b. Two to Ten   42 
                 c. More than Ten    21

B. As an Identity Provider?
                 a. One      11
                 b. Two to Ten   34
                 c. More than Ten  27

21 and 27 respondents have more than 10 federation partners, when acting as an SP and IDP respectively. So much for small deployments with limited numbers of partners.

It would be interesting to see how many OPs participated in the survey as that could skew the 'as an Identity Provider' number. Regardless, it's the comparably high 'as a Service Provider' value that indicates federation is passing the ultimate test.

One aspect of Question 4 confuses me. What does it mean to have a 'federation operator' when the federation topology is 'bilateral/explicit'? What value does the federation operator provide when agreements are bilateral? Legal templates? Dispute resolution?