COmanage and InCommon: Present and Future Activities and InteractionsHeather Flanagan, COmanage Project Coordinator, Internet2

Presentation Outline

• Intro: COmanage and InCommon• Body: VO use cases and challenges• Conclusion: Outreach and expectations

What is COmanage?

• Collaboration management platform (CMP)• Been through several iterations• Funded by the National Science Foundation

and Internet2

COmanage

• Current status– Focus on COmanage Registry– Pieces (API, some code) is already in use at LIGO– Exploring potential for a service instance– Enrollment and attribute intake is a hot area of

discussion– Demo instance up and running at I2

http://www.internet2.edu/comanage/

InCommon

• The U.S. research and education federation• Interesting activities:– IAM Online– Certificate Service– Policies, best practices, guidelines

http://www.incommonfederation.org

InCommon

• Bronze, Silver, and beyond– Internationalizing the levels

Challenges to our VO

• The attribute problem – what’s automatically available?– Enter in: InCommon and other federations

• Social identity and LoA– Different VO want to treat people differently

based on how they are authenticating, and yet, technically the LoA is not different (LoA 1)

– How does InCommon bronze/silver enter in to this?

Cont’d

• Domesticating applications– “the nice thing about standards…”– Broader VO issues around who can license

software for the VO– Need more than just web-based tools

https://wiki.surfnetlabs.nl/display/domestication/Overview

One more…

• CMP across federations– Should federation be a requirement?– Does a CMP have to be an IdP?– What metadata needs to be shared between

CMP?– CO versus COU

VO use cases

• LIGO– Large VO with collaborators and partner VO

around the world– Goal is hard science, focused on results from a set

of large instruments– A poster child for challenging identity

management– Already seeing improvements in collaboration and

research interaction thanks to tools that know who they are without them having to ask

VO use cases, cont’d

• iPlant Collaborative– Large VO with collaborators around the world– Focus are several “Grand Challenges” around plant

biology, with a continuing theme of community outreach

– Expect thousands of participants, but how they are authenticated and registered in the system dictate what data they can see and use

– Domesticated app, especially storage, is a Big Deal

Role of the Federation

• Can the federation assist with the licensing problem?

• Can the federation mandate attribute release policies?

• Is the CMP a good service offering for federations to provide to their constituency?

Things we have learned

• Domesticated technologies are good– But researchers are still learning about them

• Federations are good– But researchers are still learning about them

• CMP are good– But researchers are still learning about them

• Researchers don’t want to talk to central IT, which would shorten the learning process considerably

How to reach out to research?

• Start with a single research group, work with them closely– Researchers will gossip in their field, and fields

overlap• Don’t surprise central IT– Keep getting the word out to central IT players;

they will know what to do when Dr. Brilliant demands a CMP for his VO by tea time

Making a difference to Science

• “Harvesting the science content from LIGO data is a collaborative effort between instrumentalists, data analysts, modelers, and theorists. Efficient collaboration begins with scalable and robust identity management infrastructure that can easily be leveraged and integrated with the wide spectrum of tools LIGO scientists use to collaborate and analyze the LIGO data. Middleware from Internet2, including Shibboleth and Grouper, is enabling more LIGO science through easier collaboration and access to resources.” – Scott Koranda, Senior Scientist, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Lead Architect, LIGO Identity Management effort

Conclusion

• Expect more in this space– More CMP– More activity in the federation world– More app developers expecting someone else to

deal with their authentication, group, and authorization needs