A federation operator is an organisation that operates an identity federation. Operation typically includes at minimum:

• Collecting, processing and republishing federation metadata
• Common policies and legal frameworks that all federation participants adhere to
• Guidelines and deployment instructions to operate services in the federation
• Helpdesk to assist with deploying services and debugging issues

Many federations also offer:

• A central Discovery Service/WAYF service
• A guest Identity Provider for users that don't have accounts at participating organisations
• A test infrastructure and test servicse
• Hosted Identity Providers
• Workshops and Trainings

Most academic federations are operated by the national research and education network (NREN). These organisations typically also operate the network connecting the universities and research organisations within a country. A few examples of NRENs that are also the operator of the national federation are shown in the image above.

A list of known federation operators in the academic sector can be found on the REFEDS web page.