InCommon TAC Meeting December 10, 2015 - Minutes
Attending: Jim Basney, Steve Carmody, Keith Hazelton, Steve Olshansky, Tom Barton, Ian Young, Jim Jokl, Chris Misra, Mike LaHaye, David Walker, Scott Cantor
With: Dean Woodbeck, Ann West, Tom Scavo, IJ Kim, Nate Klingenstein, Walter Hoehn, Paul Caskey
Minutes
Nov 12, 2015 minutes approved
Federation Interoperability Working Group
Walter Hoehn, chair of the working group, joined the call to provide an update. The working group has been working on interop specs for SAML software - both IdP and SP - and should have a draft ready this week. There is interest in publishing the profile through Kantara, positioned as a successor to the egov interop profiles. Initial contact with Kantara has been positive.
Once the document is completed, the working group will invite community comment. Walter will send messages to InCommon participants and to the REFEDS list, inviting comment for a set period of time.
Other Updates
EWTI - Nick provide a summary from this meeting via email
SwiftECP - has produced a SAML package for iPhone and soon for Android
REFEDS 2016 Work Plan - REFEDS has published its 2016 work plan.
AARC Recommendation - There was discussion about the AARC recommendation regarding a minimum assurance level for low-risk research applications, and the comment period is currently open. A number of TAC members have provided comments on the plan. One thought that emerged was the potential positive role that the development of trustmarks could play. One example is a trust mark for entities with non-reassignable identifiers, which is important to a segment of the research community. Jim Basney will provide a list of research communities interested in this and other potential trustmarks.
Once this spec is defined, the hard work of change management will begin. TAC should stay on top of that and be committed to making this successful.
As a side note, TAC plans to publish a work plan, as well, and InCommon staff will provide flywheel support for such an effort.
New TAC Charter
The new TAC charter was approved by Steering on December 7, 2015.
There was general discussion about moving forward with the membership aspect of the charter and recruiting new TAC members. Jim Basney has drafted an announcement about TAC membership. The announcement will include information about the types of constituencies from which to draw (such as the CIC, NERCOMP, CLAC), as well as skill sets that interested potential members should possess. Suggestions included developing an announcement.
The discussion about how current TAC members will fit with this new structure and process was left open for now. (AI) Ann will draft a process for TAC review.
Unaffiliated IdP
Keith led a discussion about the status of “Unaffiliated IdPs” (formerly known as IdPs of Last Resort). One such IdP, UnitedID, is already in the eduGAIN metadata, meansing that InCommon participants will have access to that IdP as of Feb. 15. Should InCommon provide financial support to UnitedID or take some sort of action or recommendation related to this service?
There is not time to develop a service-level agreement (SLA) with UnitedID before Feb. 15. Any support - financial or otherwise - would be at a much lower level. There is indication from the research community that some will begin using UnitedID when it becomes available in the InCommon metadata. But there is a need to understand more about UnitedID’s goals and plans for sustainability.
Keith and the IdP of Last Resort Working Group will come back to TAC with information about which research groups find UnitedID an acceptable service and why, and with a recommendation about whether InCommon should provide some minimum level of support to UnitedID (in context of R&S and community requirements).
Next Meetings
There will be an off-week meeting December 17, 2015, at 1 pm ET
The next meeting after that will be January 7, 2016 - 1 pm ET