Interfederation

[Tom Scavo <>]

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Basney, Jim 
<>
 wrote:
>
> * Effort to add RegistrationInfo elements to InCommon metadata.

Minimal

> * Effort to publish interfed metadata aggregate to InCommon members.

I think you mean the effort required to make eduGAIN available to
InCommon members, which is minimal, but I'm reminded of the old
saying:

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

I'm pretty confident in saying eduGAIN metadata would NOT be bundled
in the current InCommon aggregate.

> * Ongoing participation in eduGAIN steering group.

This might be significant, I don't know.

> * Handling interfederation technical support, complaints, and incidents.

This, I think, is a steep "hidden" cost. In the InCommon Federation
today, members work with each other to resolve problems (such as
attribute resolution) but the InCommon admin staff don't generally get
involved. If all of a sudden InCommon admin were to start receiving an
influx of support requests, that would be a problem since we're not
set up for that.

> * No consistent standard for entity registration.
>   Need to check each federation's registration practice statement.

This is akin to some members reading POPs, which we know doesn't work.
If, OTOH, we decide that bilateral agreements between federations are
required to bring trust to the next level, well yes, that will be a
lot of work (and my gut tells me that work wouldn't be justified at
this point).

> * No consistent level of assurance of identities.

You mean of individuals who submit metadata? This is part of
registration practice statement. Are you thinking of something else?

> * SPs need to negotiate attribute release directly with IdPs.

This is out of scope, but as I've said, it is critically important.
(FWIW, I was part of a back-channel REFEDs discussion that suggested
REFEDs will take up the task of standardizing the R&S entity attribute
value, which would be great.)

Tom