Patent ID: 8255984

Claim:
A method of employing single sign-on in shared services environments, the method comprising: by a broker server system comprising computer hardware: receiving credentials from a client system, the credentials corresponding to a user of the client system; authenticating, using the credentials, an identity of the user with an authentication server; storing the credentials in a security cookie; communicating to the client a list of one or more authorized resources that the client system is permitted to access; receiving a request from the client system to access a target resource from the one or more authorized resources, the target resource comprising one of a virtual desktop and a terminal server; generating a ticket comprising an identifier of the security cookie and network connectivity information for the target resource; providing to the client system an identifier of the ticket; providing to the client system the network connectivity information for the target resource; receiving the ticket from the target resource, the ticket having been provided to the target resource from the client system; and sending the credentials to the target resource in response to receiving the ticket from the target resource to thereby enable the target resource to authenticate the client system, wherein the ticket enables the client system to authenticate to the target resource without storing the user credentials and connection information on the client system.