Grouper Users - Open Discussion List

Hi,
 
I am an Analyst/Programmer in the Press Department at Duke University. I
am familiar with Java and LDAP. 

I am wondering whether it is possible to use our campus-wide
authentication credentials for some of our newly developed web
applications (department level)? (in other words the same userid and
password). This will require access to the University LDAP server in
order to validate against the attributes centrally stored. Is it
realistic to ask for access to that server and to embed in our
departmental applications the necessary authentication procedures? Which
would be the steps to follow in order to implement a single sign-on
procedure? I should be able to get server information and an account to
access it?

I appreciate your feed-back on this,
 
Thank you,
 
Gavril