ADFS is based on Web Services architecture (WS-* specifications) and conforms to industry standards and protocols. This release supports Azure and would be a great choice for enterprises using AD as a credential store on the local domain who want to migrate to the cloud. Applications hosted on local IIS7 servers as well as in the Azure cloud can take advantage of single sign on over the extranet for the duration of the user's browser session. See MSDN for developing federation-aware applications.