Trust and Identity Program Advisory Group Minutes - July 17, 2017
Minutes
Attending: Kelli Trosvig, Ron Kraemer, John O’Keefe, Chris Phillips, Michele Norin, Ted Hanss, Klara Jelinkova, Mark Johnson
With: Dean Woodbeck, Kevin Morooney, Ann West, Steve Zoppi,
Communications
Internet2 is transitioning to "Trust and Identity" communications, as opposed to separate communications for TIER, InCommon, etc. The first step is merging two newsletters (InCommon Update and TIER Newsletter) into one Trust and Identity newsletter. This communications strategy will reinforce that the services are all part of the Trust and Identity portfolio and that there are interconnections and interrelationships.
InCommon Update
Ann provided an overview (originally presented to InCommon Steering) concerning InCommon’s priorities and use of the funds provided by the dues increase. The priorities that emerged:
- Sustaining Shibboleth software
- Hardening and sustaining federation operations
- Scaling the federation operations and infrastructure
- Maturing federation service delivery
- Creating standards
Details are available in the associated slide deck.
TIER Sustainability
Kevin will provide a Trust and Identity update to the Internet2 Board at its meeting on July 26. He will discuss the process used for setting priorities as well as a summary of the conversations about sustainability. He asked for suggestions/comments from the PAG.
- Not for the board meeting, but we need to start developing a clear set of crisp talking points about the tangible benefits that have accrued to TIER investors and adopters. There is a lot of goodwill in the community, but it is important to also discuss tangibles. How is this making life easier on campus? We need to get this right for the community (key points may be things like seamless interaction with vendors; lower curves of adoption). What has TIER and InCommon delivered for the fees and investments?
- For the board meeting – describe how Trust and Identity relates to Network Services and NET+. Suggest not using the org chart that is in the slides as it creates some confusion (note from Kevin – that slide was designed for Steering so they could see how the increase in dues is being invested)
- What will the next six months look like?
- Is the community happy with the progress being made on TIER?
- If the infrastructure seems well in hand, and we’re now talking about communication and outreach, have we moved into the sustainability phase? That will impact our strategy for the next six months.
- It seems that there has been significant turnover among CIOs in the last few months, including a number coming in from industry. They will know nothing about our efforts and how hard some of this is. We will need high-level materials for these people, and to describe things succinctly
- We have a spectrum of communication needs related to the experience of the CIOs: 1) new CIOs and don’t know much about Trust and Identity; 2) CIOs that understand this stuff but still need help; and 3) longtime participants.
TIER Adoption
Ann reported on a survey of TIER investors (March/April) that revealed a need for help in campus adoption - need to understand, for example, what a DevOps approach is. The TCIC agreed that some funds needed to be diverted from the development start-up to do something to spur adoption.
As a result, Internet2 will distribute a call for proposals for the TIER Campus Success Program, which is based on an approach that was used successfully in 2000 for an early adopter program for the middleware initiative, and again in 2004 for the extending the reach program for systems and regionals.
Internet2 will organize and provide training in the TIER software at no charge to the participating campuses. In return the campuses will provide feedback for the training process, as well as creating materials concerning their adoption path, solutions, and lessons learned. These materials will all be available to the community and later adopters.
Some questions and comments:
- Do we have a sense for all of the adoption issues out there?
- Once something is built by TIER, what is the model for support and sustainability? The adoption workshops may help clarify the needs.
- Ann commented that we will be sending the Campus Success Program call for proposals to industry members that have the potential to partner with campuses on TIER deployment
- We need to keep in mind that people have less time now than a few years ago. Along with the aforementioned churn, new CIOs have a limited amount of time to deliver a big win for their campus.
Future PAG Meetings
• There is interest in a face-to-face at TechEx (Oct 15-19 in San Francisco). It would be desirable to have Howard attend part of that. Dean will follow-up on scheduling
• Howard will be at the RUCC meeting in July – PAG members who are attending will try to meet with him informally
• The PAG will meet monthly; second Monday of the month at 4 pm ET