Patent ID: 7631346

Claim:
A method for managing user authentication within a distributed data processing system, wherein a first system and a second system interact within a federated computing environment and support single-sign-on operations in order to provide access to protected resources, at least one of the first system and the second system comprising a processor, the method comprising; triggering a single-sign-on operation on behalf of the user in order to obtain access to a protected resource that is hosted by the second system, wherein the second system requires a user account for the user to complete the single-sign-on operation prior to providing access to the protected resource; receiving from the first system at the second system an identifier associated with the user; and creating a user account for the user at the second system based at least in part on the received identifier associated with the user after triggering the single-sign-on operation but before generating at the second system a response for accessing the protected resource, wherein the created user account supports single-sign-on operations between the first system and the second system on behalf of the user.