News for and about the Internet2 community

["Ann West" <>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
NMI-EDIT

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IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION: 
EXTENDING THE REACH WITH MIDDLEWARE 
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Washington, D.C., June 30, 2004--How can middleware tools help higher 
education institutions strengthen and standardize identity and access 
management? Extending the Reach (ETR)--a partnership of the NMI-EDIT 
Consortium of Internet2, EDUCAUSE, and the Southeastern Universities 
Research Association (SURA) with several statewide university systems 
and regional networks--will explore campus middleware delivery and 
support models that demonstrate new approaches to electronic resource 
sharing and link to the emerging national and global trust fabrics. 

ETR will promote support models for identity and access management 
services and will develop effective practices for regional and state- 
based middleware infrastructure coordination. The effort will use 
existing technology components and higher education-based practices 
developed through the NSF Middleware Initiative. 

Core middleware services include electronic identification, 
authentication, and authorization, all involved in identity and access 
management. In today's Internet world, individual applications usually 
provide these services themselves. However, by promoting 
standardization and interoperability, middleware will make advanced, 
interorganizational network applications in the higher education 
environment much easier to deploy, use, and manage. Currently, most 
institutions deploy their own infrastructure independently, a very 
staff-intensive activity. 

The ETR program, managed by EDUCAUSE, is exploring the requirements and 
viability of offering outsourced services for core middleware and 
developing and piloting diverse business models, services, and products 
for middleware training, consulting, and deployment. ETR participants 
include the California State University System, the University of Texas 
System, the University of Alaska System, and the Great Plains Network 
Consortium. 

"Our colleagues across the Great Plains currently have implemented core 
middleware services differently," said Amy Apon, professor at the 
University of Arkansas and principle investigator of the Great Plains 
Network Consortium. "Leveraging the state and regional network 
providers' existing outreach and collaboration activities, we are 
working with NMI-EDIT to establish a cohesive middleware infrastructure 
for sharing electronic resources regionally. This has the potential of 
impacting not only K-20 education and research centers in the plains, 
but also libraries, hospitals, and other public and private entities in 
the central part of the country." 

Speaking for the California State University System, Mark Crase, with 
the Office of the Chancellor, said, "One of the objectives of our 
system-wide secure identity management infrastructure project is to 
avoid deploying unique, stand-alone middleware services at each CSU 
campus. NMI-EDIT has a solid base of components that we can use to 
address this technologically. Working with them through the ETR program 
will allow us to create a model where system campuses can provide these 
critical services to resource-limited schools and, while doing so, 
identify the costs and benefits and technological, procedural, and 
policy challenges associated with delivering middleware services." 

To put the ETR outreach initiative in context, EDUCAUSE Vice President 
Mark Luker said, "The operative word is scaling. Just like the original 
Internet backbone, middleware-enabled applications will have similar 
performance and interoperability issues at the state, regional, 
national, and international levels. The ETR program is the first step 
toward a broad support infrastructure for identity and access 
management that is so critical to maintaining computer and network 
security." 

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ABOUT THE NSF MIDDLEWARE INITIATIVE (NMI) - ENTERPRISE AND DESKTOP 
INTEGRATION TECHNOLOGIES CONSORTIUM (EDIT) 
The National Science Foundation (NSF) launched the NSF Middleware 
Initiative (NMI) in September 2001 by committing $12 million over three 
years to create and deploy advanced network services that simplify 
access to diverse Internet information and services. One of the first 
two system-integrator award teams, the NMI-EDIT Consortium, is led by 
Internet2, EDUCAUSE, and the Southeastern Universities Research 
Association (SURA). To help NMI create a national interoperable 
middleware infrastructure for research and education, the NMI-EDIT 
Consortium works with higher education constituencies, along with the 
commercial and government sectors and international community, to 
create shared architectures and products. Learn more at 
<http://www.nsf-middleware.org/> and <http://www.nmi-edit.org>. 

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ABOUT EDUCAUSE 
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher 
education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. 
One of its initiatives is managing outreach and education efforts for 
the NMI-EDIT Consortium. The current membership comprises nearly 1,900 
colleges, universities, and education organizations, including 180 
corporations. EDUCAUSE has offices in Boulder, Colorado, and 
Washington, D.C. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at 
http://www.educause.edu/about/ 

CONTACTS: 
Ann West 
Outreach Coordinator 
NMI-EDIT 

 
906-487-1726 

Peter DeBlois 
Director of Communication Services 
EDUCAUSE 

 
303-544-5665