Minutes, ITANA Conference Call, January 22, 2009

*Attendees*

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Jeremiah Adams, University of Colorado-Boulder
Marina Arseniev, University of California -Irvine
Mike Daly, University of Michigan
Tom Dopirak, Carnegie Mellon
R.L. Bob Morgan, University of Washington
Chris Phillips, University of Maryland-Baltimore
Ron Thielen, University of Chicago
David Walker, UC Davis
Ann West, Internet2
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

*Agenda*
1. Roll Call
2. Agenda Bash
3. Accept minutes of last call
4. April FACE2FACE Planning Session
5. Check-In / First-Of-Year Call
6. Shared Code Repositories - Marina
7. RBAC at an enterprise level - Tom Dopirak
8. Next steps, next call

*Face2Face*

The next Face2Face is scheduled in conjunction with the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. The Internet2 meeting is April 27-29. ITANA would meet on April 29-30. The tentative agenda calls for topic-focused presentations and discussions the morning of April 30, then breaking into working groups during the afternoon.

There will be four topics presented in the morning, with a chair for each session responsible for developing the conversation:

1. Enterprise Authorization - Marina Arseniev
2. Kuali - David Walker
3. SOA and interoperability - Tom Dopirak
4. Federation - R.L. Bob Morgan

Previous Face2Face gatherings have not charged a registration fee. For this year, a modest registration fee will be necessary to defray costs such as food and AV support. Ann West and the Internet2 meeting planners are considering the number of people needed to break even. In addition, registration would need to close in mid-March. The fee would probably be in the neighborhood of $150. Those on the call did not think such a fee would affect attendance.

*Shared Code Repositories*

UC Irvine has made a commitment to increase collaboration and is interested in sharing code for various projects. There was discussion about coordinating some type of code-sharing clearinghouse - either a repository or an index of repositories, with an organization like EDUCUASE or JA-SIG.

Jim Phelps brought Jim Helwig into the conversation. Jim Helwig is at the University of Wisconsin and is a member of the JA-SIG board. He described a process that JA-SIG is starting to formalize, in which a project can submit potential projects and code. Once the code gets to a certain level of acceptance - that is, there is working code and adopters - it becomes a sponsored project.

JA-SIG not just for java. The organization focuses on higher education and institutions can become members. Jim will send information about JA-SIG and its acceptance process to the the list.

*Role-based Access Control*

Tom Dopirak from Carnegie Mellon reported that he is working on role-based access control and has had discussions with Oracle, mainly around the topics of de-provisioning, ensuring that each user has just one identity, and controlling sensitive information that resides in remote locations. He is interested in what others are doing, in terms of developing roles and privileges.

Others reported that role-definition is a difficult topic. People have a sense that role definitions are consistent across organizations and they are not. The finer the granularity desired, the more difficult it can become.

Bob Morgan reported that Internet2 is decommissioning Signet, an open-source privilege management tool that has never caught on. MACE is organizing a new discussion that will focus on what people want, what current tools are working, and the direction for developing shared software products that would help solve some of the problems related to privilege management.

*Next Call, Thursday, February 5, 2009, 2 p.m. EDT*

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