A circle of trust, previously referred to as an authentication domain, is a federation of any number of service providers (and at least one identity provider) with whom principals can transact business in a secure and apparently seamless environment. To create and populate a circle of trust, you first create an entity to hold the metadata (configuration information that defines a particular identity service architecture) for each provider that will become a member of the circle of trust. Then, you configure and save the circle of trust. Finally, to add an entity (a configured provider) to the circle of trust, you edit the entity's properties.
The following tasks are associated with circles of trust: