I am dealing with some tough SAML issues, with Michele's help, and I thought I would put in some review notes on SAML for other people to benefit as well. Reference for this material was the book: Securing Web Services with WS-Security.   Introduction In the past, there was no real need to share identities from one organization or company to another. This has changed quite a bit with SOA, Services and the Internet with increased collaboration across trust domains. The need for federation