1. In a networked computing environment comprising federations, wherein a federation comprises two or more organizations coupled in a fashion such that authentication and authorization statements span the organizations in accordance with a pre-defined policy, a computer readable medium comprising: a data structure, wherein the data structure comprises fields including at least one or more grouping of metadata about a first federation or about an organization within the first federation, wherein at least one of the one or more groupings of metadata about the first federation or about an organization within the first federation are included in the data structure by a reference to a block of federation metadata, the block of federation metadata being used for at least one other federation or organization.