Today, during my SharePoint 2010 Microsoft Certified Master training office hours, a few folks wondered what the differences are between ticketed, restricted, and normal target application types in the SSS. It came to my attention that these are not clearly spelled out in the MSDN or TechNet documentation about the SSS (well, at least I can’t find it… 
); so I decided to create this blog post and explain them.
A Ticketed target application type is used to store and retrieve credentials to access an external data source which supports claims based authentication.
A Restricted target application type is used to store and retrieve credentials to access systems that require additional authentication.
Note: To access data in SharePoint Online, you use this target application type.
A Normal target application type is used to store and retrieve credentials to access an external data source which use standard authentication practices to transmit credentials each time a connection occurs.
Note: This is the most common method used.
The following screenshot shows you where these are set in Central Administration.
