On October 31, 2018, Microsoft Office 365 will disable support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1. Any infrastructure being used to federate between on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD needs to be able to support both inbound and outbound connections that use TLS 1.2.

Single Sign-on to Office 365

Here's the bad news: If you are using an older version of Active Directory Federation Server (ADFS) for single sign-on (SSO) to Office 365, it may not support TLS 1.2, meaning access to Office 365 will no longer work after October 31! Your choices are to upgrade ADFS or use another federation server.

Now the good news. If you are using any supported version of PingFederate, you are in good shape as it supports TLS 1.2 already. PingFederate's Office 365 connector makes configuration simple and allows your best-in-class federation and provisioning to Office 365 to continue without interruption.

It's not just Office 365 that requires TLS 1.2; most SaaS apps do. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the cryptographic protocol that provides communications security between servers and web browsers, replacing SSL. It is essential that any federation server you use be able to utilize TLS 1.2 for securing these communications.

PingFederate Advantages over ADFS

As mentioned, PingFederate not only supports TLS 1.2 but also provides several distinct advantages over ADFS. PingFederate offers comprehensive support for modern identity standards and integrates easily with existing infrastructure. With pre-built integration components and simple REST APIs, PingFederate makes it easy to provide authentication, provisioning and secure SSO across your existing applications and resources. It integrates with thousands of SaaS applications and hundreds of languages, platforms and protocols, including:

• All major web and application servers and cloud virtualization platforms
• Legacy web access management solutions
• All common directories (including AD and Azure AD)
• Most common commercial enterprise applications

When the October 31 deadline comes, you'll need to know that your federation server can keep what's arguably your most important productivity tool running. Check out PingFederate to expand beyond ADFS.

*This blog has been revised to reflect the adjusted date changed by Microsoft from March 1 to October 31.