Grouper Developers Forum

["Jessica Bibbee" <>]

Grouper Working Group Meeting

January 23, 2007

*Attendees*

Tom Barton, U. Chicago (chair)

Gary Brown, Bristol U.

Chris Hyzer, U. Pennsylvania 

Bill Kasenchar, U. Pennsylvania

Jennifer Yuan, U. Pennsylvania

RL "Bob" Morgan, U. Washington

Caleb Racey, Newcastle U.

Dave Donnelly, Stanford U.

Joy Veronneau, Cornell U.

Steve Barrett, Cornell U.

Ann West, EDUCAUSE/Internet2

Steve Olshansky, Internet2

Jessica Bibbee, Internet2 (scribe) 

New *Action Items*

[AI] {Chris} will report to the {grouper-dev} mailing list on the proposed use of Hibernate 3.0.

[AI] {Cal} will contact {Sanjay Vivek} about setting up a call to discuss potential use of the Apache Rampart model.

[AI] {Gary} will initiate an offline discussion on UI, bringing results back to a future WG call.

Carry-over *Action Items*

[AI] {James} will report back to the Group with results of performance testing of v1.2.1. (12-Dec-07).

[AI] {Kathryn} will draft a proposal for future Ldappc work. (14-Nov-07)

*Agenda*

1. Move to hibernate3 support and remove hibernate2 support for v1.3?

2. grouper-ws:

  a. axis' rest: is it usable by restful sites?

  b. grouper, as a deep study in groups management, presents a complex set of capabilities. Should a simpler, "groups-lite", interface be defined that serves just the simpler use cases? Is a "restful litmus test" a reasonable proxy for "simpler"?

  c. 2nd call for thoughts on securing access to grouper-ws

 related:

<https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/GrouperWG/Grouper+-+Web+Services>

3. 2nd call for feedback on UPenn UI analysis

<https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/GrouperWG/UI+Analysis>.

*Discussion*

-Move to hibernate3 support and remove hibernate2 support for v1.3?-

{Tom} asked the Group for feedback on possible issues stemming the use of Hibernate3. It should provide value without creating a maintenance burden. [AI] {Chris} will report to the {grouper-dev} mailing list on the proposed use of Hibernate 3.0. This discussion and feedback-gathering will continue on the mailing list.

-Grouper-Web Services-

The Group discussed pros/cons for using Axis and REST, with interoperability being a key aspect. It will be possible to take the work that {Chris} has done with Axis and adapt it to be more useful, as necessary. 

How lightweight of an interface is needed for the simpler use case? If only a subset of the full capabilities are needed, does it make sense to provide a "groups-lite"? What should be included here – e.g., add, remove, list? Initially, it ought to solve basic group management, with or with awareness of a hierarchy. Later, complex stems can be supported. {Cal} offered up a preference for REST.  Newcastle U. will need to interact with Soap, and REST provides a means to that end. Where might they be able to expose a web services interface to objects such as group and membership. Further discussion on the requirements surrounding the use of REST will contribute to the direction of this work.

The Group also discussed how to secure access to web services, i.e., via a middle layer of authentication. {Steve B.} viewed this more as a question of authorization, as opposed to just authentication. For example, Cornell would handle the authentication, but they have not yet settled on a best way to authorize someone to perform certain tasks inside the web services. Could the IP address be useful as an initial authorization parameter? Specific scenarios would be useful in outlining the possible routes here.

{Cal} shared some work that {Sanjay Vivek} is working on, pertaining to Apache Rampart for WS-Sec stacks. [AI] {Cal} will contact {Sanjay Vivek} about setting up a call to discuss potential use of the Apache Rampart model.

For more information on Grouper web services, see: 

< https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/GrouperWG/Grouper+-+Web+Services>

 -2nd call for feedback on UPenn UI analysis-

{Bill} gave another update on the UI progress; they are hoping to modify the existing UI in the near-term to free up resources. Eventually, a more sophisticated UI will grow from there. The Group will need to determine whether they will make wholesale changes to their work; a contributed properties file would avail additional options. [AI] {Gary} will initiate an offline discussion on UI, bringing results back to a future WG call.

For more information on current UI work, see:

<https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/GrouperWG/UI+Analysis>.

The next Grouper Working Group conference call will be held on Wednesday, February 9, 2008 at 12pm EST.

-- 
Jessica Bibbee, Technical Analyst
Internet2

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