InCommon Steering Committee Meeting - October 1, 2018
Minutes
Attending: Ann West, Ted Hanss, Mark Scheible, Sean Reynolds, Laura Paglione, Dave Vernon, Brett Bieber, Michael Gettes, Celeste Schwartz, Marty Ringle
With: Kevin Morooney, Steve Zoppi, Garrett King
SP Onboarding Working Group
Garrett King (Carnegie Mellon University) joined the Steering call. He chaired the Streamlining SP Onboarding Working Group and presented the working group’s final report for Steering’s acceptance.
The working group was formed to identify and document standards for service provider operation in the federation, in determining ways to streamline the onboarding process (which can be daunting). The group used the CIC Cloud Services Cookbook as a starting point. The working group developed:
A criteria document, which outlines the things a service provider would need to know and do in joining the InCommon Federation, and that would ensure the application can maximize interoperability and ensure a good user experience.
A questionnaire - this form leads a service provider through a series of questions that will do a self-assessment of readiness for federation, and presents guidance and recommendations, depending on how a question is answered.
A primer that provides basic information about single sign-on, SAML, the federated environment, metadata, and other concepts.
Steering members commented that additional work may be necessary to build on the work of the SP Onboarding Working Group. Some considerations:
Provide material for IdPs to use in presenting the InCommon value statement from a service provider’s point of view
Additional friendly documents that welcome service providers to the InCommon community. In general, InCommon’s communications have been IdP-centric and this is an opportunity to change that. We need to be welcoming to SPs, not off-putting (this is common among R&E federations).
Recognize that the SPs are not embedded in the community and so may not know where to address questions.
One friendly amendment was to change the name of the final documents from “SP Onboarding” to “SP Orientation.” Garrett said the working group would be fine with that.
Sean thanked Garret, on behalf of Steering, for the working group’s contributions. Steering accepted the working group’s final report. InCommon staff will do a gap analysis based on this work (and that of other working groups from this year) and present a proposal to the TAC on how to proceed with the recommendations.
2019 Nominations
There will be at least two new Steering members as of January 1, 2019, as Michael and Klara have both reached the end of their second consecutive three-year term. Ted and Celeste are completing their first three-year term and those seats will be open for nominations, as well (both could be nominated for a second three-year term).
Steering has the responsibility to develop a slate of candidates that would include two nominees for each of the four open seats. As chair, Sean then sends those nominees to Internet2 for consideration (since Internet2 is the sole member of the InCommon LLC). Kevin is the Internet2 representative for this purpose. He then reviews his recommendation with Internet2 CEO Howard Pfeffer.
There was discussion about audiences to consider as part of the nomination process: research, service provider, and corporate sponsored partner.
Further discussion of potential nominees will take place at the November Steering meeting, with a slate of candidates finalized at the December meeting.
TechEx Face-to-Face
Steering and the Internet2 Trust and Identity PAG will meet jointly at TechEx, on Tuesday, October 16, 1:00 - 3:50 pm.