InCommon Steering Committee Meeting - August 6, 2018

Minutes

Attending: Dee Childs, Michael Gettes, Marty Ringle, Ted Hanss, Sean Reynolds, Von Welch, Mark Scheible, Sean Reynolds, Mike Erickson, Brett Bieber, Laura Paglione, Pankaj Shah, Ann West

With: Kevin Morooney, Dean Woodbeck, Brad Christ

Attributes for Collaboration and Federation Working Group (Brad Christ)

Brad Christ, chair of the working group, shared the group's final report and focused the recommendations.

Recommendations:


  • Make R&S attribute support a requirement in Baseline Expectations

  • InCommon should build a bigger tent

  • Add more researchers to Internet2 and InCommon governance bodies

  • Engage grant funding agencies

  • Operate an InCommon IdP as a service

  • Improve support for Service Providers

  • Improve R&S documentation for IdPs and SPs

  • Rethink InCommon’s R&S outreach efforts

  • Remove the legacy “InCommon-only” R&S Category

  • Sean expressed thanks to Brad for the extensive work from the working group


Discussion:

  • The IdP as a Service concept seems to fit with the trend of universities looking at ways to outsource and also for external assessments (network evaluations, REN-ISAC doing more security assessments). It recognizes that we can’t all be good at everything.
    • Based on some of the WG outreach, there seems to be interest from both smaller schools and larger institutions. IdPaaS seems to be of particular interest to institutions have perceive technical barriers with joining InCommon.
  • InCommon would not necessarily have to run this, but partner with another entity
  • (AI) For a future Steering agenda - Discuss making R&S a part of Baseline and whether this has the potential to affect participation rates
    • Brad mentioned that the WG heard pretty strongly that R&S should be part of Baseline and didn't hear any discussion of groups that might leave InCommon because of that.

Steering Resolution

It was moved, seconded and passed (unanimously) to accept the report of the Attributes for Collaboration and Federation Working Group, and to thank Brad Chris (chair) and members of the working group for their work.

Identity Provider-as-a-Service - Ann

Steering heard about discussions underway about options for providing Identity Provider as a Service. Ann reported:

  • Unicon currently offers IdPaaS and has had modest uptake

  • OpenAthens, a U.K. entity that has been involved in federation since the early days, is also interested. They already provide such services in the UK and are interested in expanding to the U.S.

  • JISC, the UK's rough equivalent to NSF, is also interested


InCommon’s role would be to ensure these services support the community requirements (e.g. BE, R&S, SIRTFI, etc.)
, as defined by the community. InCommon Management has asked the InCommon TAC to gather requirements for an Identity Provider as a Service. InCommon would also operate some sort of verification (which would likely be annual) In return, InCommon would promote them as “InCommon Verified.”


InCommon TAC is discussing standing up a working group. Tom Barton has started a paper that would inform a WG charter. Membership would include InCommon participants (specifically including service providers) and international federation operators. InCommon would also help create a market and then allow IdPaaS organizations to compete
, as well as work with these providers to do some bundling with InCommon and IdPaaS


Trust and Identity Presentation to Internet2 Board of Trustees - Kevin

Kevin provided an overview of his recent presentation to the Internet2 Board of Trustees. The presentation was part of a series providing the board with the business and financial aspects of each division of Internet2
. Kevin introduced the conversation that Steering and the PAG are having about potential InC fee increases, related to the the new support model of the Shibboleth Consortium, and sustaining the software development post-TIER. Kevin will also review his presentation with the Trust and Identity PAG next week.

Pankaj, who is on the Internet2 board, said the board was supportive of the overall concept for InCommon and software development.


Sean said that Steering will need to focus the next two meetings on development of the model for the sustainability of InCommon and the software development
.

2019 Global Summit Sessions

Dean shared a link to a Google spreadsheet being used to propose Trust and Identity session topics for the 2019 Global Summit. Steering members were asked to contribute to the sheet with any ideas about potential topics for the 2019 Global Summit.

2018 Technology Exchange

Steering and the Trust and Identity PAG will meet jointly at the 2018 Technology Exchange in Orlando, Florida. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 16 - 1-3:50 pm

Next Meeting: September 10, 4 pm ET, 3 pm CT, 2 pm MT, 1 pm PT

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