Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit

Understanding Authentication

Authentication is a method of associating an identity with an entity. The process of authentication is to collect some form of authentication information from an entity, analyze it, and determine whether an identity can be associated with the entity. In computer technology, four forms of information are used to confirm an entity’s identity:

• What the entity knows (such as passwords or secrets)

• What the entity is (such as biometrics)

• What the entity can do (such as typing analysis)

• What the entity has (such as a security badge)

The following sections discuss the authentication technologies—NTLM and Kerberos—that Office Communications Server uses. Digest authentication is used by anonymous conference participants, which is ...