Why does a university has an EntityID with a URN format?

I am setting up the Campus-Wide License Portal with the MathWorks Installation Support team at the moment. I realized that my EntityID looks different than most of the federations' recommended formats, see below:

My EntityID: "urn:mace:incommon:example.edu"

Recommended EntityID: "https://idp_name.example.edu/idp"

Why is it so? How can I change my EntityID to match the recommended format?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

An EntityID is a globally unique name for a SAML entity. The first step in configuring any SAML deployment is to choose a permanent name for the entity.

Historically, InCommon (US Federation) assigned an URN (Uniform Resource Name) to all new IdPs. This is probably why your EntityID is on a URN based format. However, nowadays a new SAML entity would choose their EntityID by themselves following federation's recommendations.

Having a URN EntityID is not a problem and won't cause any issues. It is not strongly recommended to not change it. In fact, you should never change an IdP EntityID. Find more information related to this topic on this page: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/InCFederation/Entity+IDs