The DualShield SSO server is a single sign-on server that support several authentication protocols including SAML 1.1, SAML 2.0 and WS-Federation. As far as SAML is concerned, the DualShield SSO server is a SAML Identity Provider (IdP).
The DualShield SSO server is always installed as an component of the DualShield backend and frontend server, as it is used by the DualShield consoles such as the Admin Console for the administrators and the Service Console for the end users. Therefore, commonly it is not neccessary for you to install a seperate DualShield SSO server (The Compact Deployment architecture). However, if you need to use the DualShield SSO server for a SAML IdP for an external, clould based application, then you might want to install a DualShield SSO server in your DMZ (The Extended Deploymlent architecture).