In its Phase 2 Recommendations published in January 2014, the Metadata Distribution WG recommended a pilot study of per-entity metadata
An operations team initially deployed a beta instance of a Metadata Query Server in the summer of 2014
The MDQ server sourced (and still sources) both InCommon metadata and eduGAIN metadata
To facilitate the eduGAIN pilot, the beta MDQ server began serving an aggregate of ~1500 IdPs in August 2014
At least six (6) production SPs exported to eduGAIN consume the IdP aggregate served from the beta MDQ server
In September 2014, the Per-Entity Metadata Pilot was publicly announced
Since December 2014, InCommon Ops has been testing IdP interoperability using shell scripts that consume per-entity metadata served from mdq-beta.incommon.org
In conjunction with the public release of Shibboleth IdP V3, the Metadata Query Server began serving per-SP metadata in January 2015
The simpleSAMLphp developers have been testing against mdq-beta.incommon.org since January 2015
The shibboleth.net SPs began consuming per-entity metadata served from mdq-beta.incommon.org since January 2015
On March 18, 2015, an extension of the Per-Entity Metadata Pilot was announced
By virtue of the testing conducted on shibboleth.net, we can conclude that the Shibboleth SP implementation is production-ready for per-entity metadata
Per-entity metadata precludes the need for IdP operators to share “hardcopies” of their IdP metadata with SP partners that do not automatically refresh metadata
Per-entity metadata may give users of “other software” (especially AD FS) added incentive to refresh metadata
The Metadata Query Server could easily support an alternative security model based on TLS (which is thought to be the security model preferred by AD FS)
Per-entity metadata disrupts the current model of IdP discovery