i have been trying to implement SSO using SAML in Java. for quite some time i have been referring to blogs by experts and some of the answers on your site. I wanted to know if there is a standard reference document which defines all the protocol elements and attributes of SAML request/response and guidance for their use. I have been using it according to my own convenience without following any standards simply exchanging XML messages between web applications.
Thank you.
http://docs.oasis-open.org/security/saml/v2.0/saml-profiles-2.0-os.pdf is a good reference, but a good layman's explanation is https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gUmMcecHN9s
In addition to Chris Dickson's answer , the following link also provides standard documentation for opansaml-java
The SAML specifications are available here