standards in the IAM space

• LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) — one of the most famous of them all
  • midPoint's LDAP survival guide
• Active Directory
• SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language)
• SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management)
  • midPoint rails against SCIM, saying that it's an example of "premature standardization", among other choice words
• vCard (Virtual Contact File)
• FOAF (friend of a friend)

concepts

• identity management
• authentication vs. authorization
• federations