InCommon Operations Notifications

[Albert Wu <>]

Dear InCommon Site Administrators,

The InCommon Federation is gearing up for an action-packed 2024. We're thrilled to announce a series of long-awaited enhancements to our services, and I'm excited to share them with you to assist in your future planning.

 

Enabling Federated Access to Federation Manager Portal

Timing: Summer 2024
Service Impact: Site Administrators will sign into Federation Manager via Federated Access

That's right. Federation Manager, the tool you use to manage InCommon-registered metadata, will support federated access for Site Admins this summer. Federation Manager already supports federated access for eduroam administrators and InCommon Delegated Administrators.

Detailed migration information will follow. Once enabled, if your organization has an InCommon-registered IdP, you can access Federation Manager using your home organization credential. If your organization does not have an IdP, you will be able to sign in via either an Internet2 Guest account or via Google.  

 

Time to Move to the Per-Entity Metadata (MDQ) Service

Timing: Throughout 2024 with migration is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
Service Impact: All services (IdP and SP) need to migrate to use the MDQ metadata service by the end of 2024. 

InCommon first launched the Per-Entity Metadata Service in 2020. Since then, we have been operating it in parallel with the legacy InCommon metadata aggregate. 2024 is the year we finally retire the legacy aggregate. 

InCommon will be retiring the legacy aggregate at the end of 2024. If you have not already done so, please update your system to retrieve metadata from the Per-Entity Metadata Service as soon as possible. Not sure how to migrate? Stay tuned: specific migration help is coming in early summer 2024.

 

Operationalizing InCommon Federation Baseline Expectations, Phase II

Timing:  Starting Fall 2024
Service Impact: All registered services (IdP and SP) will confirm annual adherence with Baseline Expectations requirements 

InCommon's Operationalizing Baseline Expectations (BE) initiative continues. In 2023, we updated InCommon's data integrity validation measures to help detect out-of-date metadata information. We also improved the TLS scanning process, allowing Site Administrators to schedule on-demand scans of their entities from Federation Manager.

In 2024, we continue to implement the remainder of the Community Trust & Assurance Board’s (CTAB) Operationalizing Baseline Expectations for Federation Operators.

 

Other Noteworthy News

These items don't have direct/immediate service impacts, but we think you will want to know about them:  

InCommon’s Promoting Digital Collaboration Strategy Report: The Community’s Conversation Continues with IAM Online

InCommon recently published the InCommon Strategy Report, titled "Promoting Digital Collaboration," during this year's Internet2 Community Exchange. This report represents the culmination of a significant strategic planning endeavor aimed at shaping a vibrant future for InCommon while addressing the identity and access management (IAM) challenges encountered by the research and higher education community. You can access the report from the Internet2 website. 

Kevin Morooney, Vice President of Trust and Identity and NET+ Programs at Internet2, and Marc Wallman, Vice President of the Information Technology Division at North Dakota State University, will host the April 17th InCommon IAM Online. During this session, Kevin and Marc will examine the approach outlined in the report and respond to inquiries regarding InCommon's plans to enhance the tools and services utilized for accessing shared resources and fostering collaborations.

Register for IAM Online

Deployment Guidance for REFEDS Access Entity Categories Consultation Underway

The InCommon Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) is seeking community consultation for its proposed Deployment Guidance for REFEDS Access Entity Categories. This Deployment Guidance is a part of InCommon's continued effort to streamline federated access and improve interoperability.

The consultation is open from April 1, 2024, through April 30, 2024. Please visit the Consultation page to review the document and to provide your feedback. 

Related: Check out TAC's 2024 Work Plan

Implementation Guidance for REFEDS Assurance Framework V2

REFEDS published version 2.0 of the REFEDS Assurance Framework (RAF) in 2023. RAF 2.0 incorporates feedback from RAF 1.0 rollouts, tightening definitions and clarifying Identity Assurance Profile criteria. InCommon published the REFEDS Assurance Framework (v1.0) Implementation Guidance for InCommon Participants (http://doi.org/10.26869/ti.157.1) in 2021.  The Community Trust & Assurance Board is chartering a working group to update this Implementation Guidance document in its 2024 Work Plan.

Related Check out CTAB's 2024 Work Plan

 

 

Whew. That's a lot. Congratulations on reading to the end. We are happy to field questions at . 

Best, 

albert

Albert Wu
InCommon Federation Manager
Internet2 Trust & Identity