Patent ID: 7562382

Claim:
A method for providing federated functionality within a data processing system, the method comprising: defining configuration data wherein the configuration data describes a federation relationship between an identity provider and a plurality of requestors; configuring federation relationship data which is specific to a first specialized runtime, wherein identity provider configuration data is overridden by the configured federation relationship data; receiving a first request having first runtime parameters at a first computing system for access to federation services from the identity provider, wherein the first request is made by a first requestor in the plurality of requestors; examining the first request to determine the configuration data identified by the runtime parameters; invoking an application using the configuration data identified by the runtime parameters, wherein the configuration data is dynamically retrieved during invocation of the application; instantiating the first specialized runtime using the first runtime parameters at the first computing system for the first request, wherein the first specialized runtime provides requested federation services for the first requestor according to the configuration data, wherein the configuration data is dynamically retrieved during instantiating of the first specialized runtime; and providing the requested federation services using the first specialized runtime.