Amazon EC2 has captured enormous market share and interest as many organizations look to leverage the benefits of running various services in the cloud.

At the same time, Google Apps has generated mass appeal for many organizations who hope that Google Apps will help them save money, increase user productivity and foster collaboration.

Single Sign On (SSO) for Google Apps is a key component of any Google Apps rollout strategy.  Simply put, Single Sign On to Google Apps increases user adoption and the resulting collaboration associated with the use of Google Apps.

Google requires SAML 2.0 compliance for support of SSO to Google Apps.

With ever-growing frequency, more organizations are looking to support SAML 2.0 based Single Sign On to Google Apps, while having the option of deploying the SAML 2.0 SSO service solution running on the Amazon EC2 platform.

A recent client implemented an innovative SAML 2.0 use case using the EasyConnect SAML product solution from SSO Easy.

The case study of the customer’s use case involves users in their organization leveraging their Google Apps login credentials to gain access to Salesforce, leveraging OpenID.

Users first gain access to Google Apps using their Google Apps ID and Password.  In this instance, Google Apps is essentially acting as the Identity Provider (IDP) in the SAML 2.0 implementation.

Once the Single Sign On (SSO) connection to Google Apps has been enabled, the OpenID capability in the EasyConnect product from SSO Easy is enabled to provide seamless SSO access to Salesforce.

Most Google Apps users also use a mobile device of some kind, and want to have seamless integration and support between their Google Apps implementation and their cell phone.

In an effort to foster user adoption and collaboration, more and more organizations that are implementing Google Apps are also providing Single Sign On capability for their users.

Google requires the use of the SAML 2.0 specification and protocol in order to implement support for SSO to Google Apps.

Increasingly, users and organizations that intend to yield the desired benefits of Google Apps need to provide integrated support for SAML 2.0 based Single Sign on to Google Apps, with integrated SSO capability for users’ mobile / cell phone devices.

IMAP and POP3 email systems are some of the most vital systems which operate in many companies today.  No other system captures the users’ time and attention as much.  No other system manages such vital information for the organization and for the user.

For a wide variety of reasons, Google Apps is quickly growing in popularity as a major productivity and collaboration platform. 

Many organizations require support for both IMAP and/or POP3 email systems and Google Apps.

From both a security perspective, and to enable personal and organizational productivity, support for Single Sign On between IMAP and/or POP3 email systems and Google Apps is critically important.

SAML 2.0 is the standard that has been embraced by the marketplace as the dominant protocol for enabling SSO between disparate systems.

Providing support for SAML 2.0 based Single Sign On between POP3 and/or IMAP email systems and Google Apps is a vital requirement for many organizations today.  Many more organizations will require this key SSO capability as more and more Google Apps implementations occur.