Entity Categories

InCommon Entity Categories

A Service Category is a special type of Entity Category. A Service Category is a group of service providers with a common purpose. The intended goal of a Service Category is to make attribute release more scalable. To this end, IdPs release a known set of attributes to entire categories of SPs. Using entity attributes (instead of entityIDs), attribute release policy at the IdP is configured for all services in the category (both present and future), rather than once per service. IdPs signal their support of particular service categories in metadata, which allows SPs to build dynamic, relevant discovery interfaces.

To become a member of the Research and Scholarship Category, a service provider supports the research and scholarly activities of the higher ed community and satisfies a modest set of technical requirements.

Terminology

• An Entity Category is an Entity Attribute with @Name http://macedir.org/entity-category and @NameFormat urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:uri.
• An Entity Attribute is a SAML Attribute in a container of type mdattr:EntityAttributeType defined by an Entity Attribute Profile of SAML Metadata.
• An Entity Attribute Profile of SAML Metadata describes how SAML Attributes and Assertions can be added to SAML metadata extensions.
• An Entity Category Profile of SAML Entity Attributes describes a specific Entity Attribute for categorizing entities according to some Entity Attribute Profile of SAML Metadata.

Resources

• The SAML V2.0 Metadata Extension for Entity Attributes is a standards-based Entity Attribute Profile of SAML Metadata.
• Entity Category Profile of SAML Entity Attributes