Interfederation

[Jim Basney <>]

Hi,

Thanks everyone for another productive call today. My notes are below.
Feel free to reply with corrections / additions.

For next Tuesday's call I propose the following agenda:

* interfed for K-12: Quilt/InCommon workshop outcomes (Mark)
* interfed between InCommon & University systems
  UTSystem+InCommon: current approach & future improvements (Paul)
  UNL plans/requirements (Brett)
* anything else?

[Assuming Mark, Paul & Brett can join us next Tuesday.]

Wiki link: https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/incinterfed

-Jim

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attending: JimB, TomS, MariaS, ScottC, ScottK, PaulC, IanY, SteveC
new participants from last week:
  Maria Schuett - Capella University
    joined InCommon recently for
      2 InCommon SPs: Simplicity & Digital Measures
    interested to understand how universities federate with other SPs
    here to observe & participate
  Paul Caskey - UTSystem
    interop between University system and InC federation
  Steve Carmody - Brown
    instructional & research use cases
    courses include students at Universities on other continents
    research use cases include LHC Physics
proposed LIGO pilot project:
  access to main LIGO wiki SP recently added to InCommon metadata
    applied to be R&S
  requires ePPN. currently manually added to ACL on LIGO wiki.
  support access by Cardiff University collaborators
  some Cardiff folks already have LIGO credentials but other
    collaborators aren't officially on LIGO project but could
    benefit from LIGO wiki access using home credentials
  can we do it without LIGO SP joining federation? not just a one-off?
  no immediate deadline for this - have time to do it right
  then Glasgow next...
  friction points:
    metadata exchange
    contracts
    attribute release - R&S today is InCommon local.
  just each load metadata from external federation?
    without joining each other's federations?
    LIGO already done this with Canadian federation.
  how do we define interfederation?
    IdP-SP direct exchange of metadata
    each IdP/SP loads metadata from separate federations
      downside: participants need to know what feds each is in
    federations exchange metadata for participants
  UK interfederation trial [1][2]:
    Cardiff is involved already - good for LIGO pilot use case
    separate test metadata aggregate can include external entities.
      includes one of Cardiff's IdPs
    ePPN release is a sensitive issue in Europe
      hope for some intl version of R&S in long term...
        isn't there a refeds work item on this? yes. see [3]
    need a metadata source for LIGO's SP
    get Cardiff IdP metadata from (options - "half-way houses"):
      Cardiff directly
      UK production metadata
      UK export aggregate
    Irish federation publishing a separate "export" metadata aggregate
    could use InCommon production metadata aggregate to start
  InCommon would need to do some work to handle metadata aggregates.
  does it help for LIGO to make a formal request to InCommon to
  provide a new metadata aggregate that includes UK export aggregate?
    so LIGO doesn't need to download UK federation metadata directly.
    given different LOA for different metadata sources,
      putting them in same file raises policy concerns.
      InCommon would need to re-sign.
  interest: ScottK, IanY, TomS, JimB
  what do we want to learn from this?
    logistical issues that InCommon Ops would face as we scale to more
      federations (not just UK)
    what questions might campuses have of InCommon on policy side
      before they decide to rely on InCommon's interfed aggregate?
proposed metadata pilot?
  publishing a metadata aggregate for InCommon participants
  re-sign and republish another federation's metadata
  dynamic metadata lookups?
  want a single source of trust for the metadata
  refer to UK references / plans
  if Brown were consuming, would want ability to filter via tags
  ref: MDRPI specification supports carrying registration info
Brown SP pilot? AI: Steve will check.
  Spring semester course with French students.
  Will look for UK example.
proposed edugain pilot project:
  policy documents being revised now. JohnK and JimB are observers.
follow-up on InCommon/Quilt workshop next week.
progress on UTexas / InCommon interfederation?
  UT already setup on a publish/subscribe basis.
  Paul and Tom have discussed possible improvements to current setup.
follow example from InCommon Social ID WG:
  social ID working group instantiated a pilot service (UTexas hosted).
  looking for a volunteer to create InCommon+UK metadata as a pilot
    LIGO (ScottK) could do this in April/May

[1] http://www.ukfederation.org.uk/content/Documents/InterfederationTrialFAQ
[2] http://iay.org.uk/blog/2012/08/uk-federation-metadata-aggregation
[3]
https://refeds.terena.org/index.php/REFEDS_Planning_Documents_2013#Entity_Categories