News for and about the Internet2 community

[Lauren Rotman <>]

Open Source Leaders Collaborate on Identity Management Issues at  
Advanced CAMP in Philadelphia

June 29, 2009 – At the Advanced Campus Architecture Middleware  
Planning (CAMP) workshop held in Philadelphia on June 18-19, open  
source software developers and campus deployers met to forge a  
collaborative approach to address common Identity and Access  
Management (IAM) issues.

IAM ensures that the right people access the right online services; it  
addresses how individuals and groups are identified and authorized  
within and across computer networks. It is a common requirement for  
all online applications, and is one of the first integration tasks  
that sites undertake when deploying a new software package or engaging  
an outsourced service. IAM requirements in academia are shifting as  
campuses collaborate, economize, outsource, federate, and standardize.  
In this changing environment, software projects and vendors get mixed  
messages about how to support IAM and campus deployers find that each  
new package or service brings a new integration challenge.

According to R.L. “Bob” Morgan, Chair of the Middleware Architecture  
Committee for Education (MACE), “This Advanced CAMP aimed to define  
and refine IAM requirements, improve channels for collaboration among  
community source projects, and increase the alignment of complementary  
work.”

Supported by EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and Jasig, the workshop included  
representation from fourteen open-source projects and participants  
from Brazil, Columbia, Canada and France. Program committee member and  
Jasig executive director Jonathan Markow explained that the program  
committee set the tone with its diverse makeup, including  
representatives from Internet2, Kuali, CAS and Open Repository Projects.

“What’s unique about this event is that we had a combination of  
leaders representing the key open source applications and an  
unprecedented opportunity for them to collaborate,” commented Markow.  
For the full list of community and open source participants, see http://net.educause.edu/Program/1021815 
 .

In implementing several community source applications, campuses  
sometimes find that each one brings a new integration challenge.  
Aligning approaches to identity services helps shorten the time to  
production and reduces the complexity involved in deployment.  It  
often simplifies the experience for the user also.

“This Advanced CAMP brought together identity management experts and  
open-source projects practitioners who depend on identity management  
services," said Gary Schwarz, who presented to the group on the  
Bedework open-source, enterprise calendar system, for which he is the  
Project Manager. "It's an exceptional opportunity to have an  
interactive conversation on providing services to organizations in the  
way they need them.“ The group focused on establishing common  
standards and interfaces that will benefit the entire community.

In addition to aligning identity approaches, attendees also explored  
the next challenges. “I hope to get out of the conference a shared  
effort on federated authorization,” commented Ray Davis of U. C.  
Berkeley, a key contributor to the Sakai Project. Federated identity  
refers to the shared authentication and authorization among multiple  
trusted sources and services.

For more information on the Advanced CAMP, visit http://net.educause.edu/camp093 
 . The Advanced CAMP was sponsored by EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and Jasig.  
Additional support was provided by National Science Foundation  
Cooperative Agreement OCI-0330626. There was also sponsorship from  
Unicon, Internet Society, and Kantara Initiative.


About EDUCAUSE

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association and the foremost community of IT  
leaders and professionals committed to advancing higher education.  
EDUCAUSE programs and services are focused on analysis, advocacy,  
community building, professional development, and knowledge creation  
because IT can play a transformative role in higher education.  
EDUCAUSE supports those who lead, manage, and use information  
technology through a comprehensive range of resources and activities.  
For more information, visitwww.educause.edu.

About Internet2

Led by the research and education community since 1996, Internet2  
promotes the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge  
network capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that  
together facilitate the development, deployment and use of  
revolutionary Internet technologies. Internet2 brings the U.S.  
research and academic community together with technology leaders from  
industry, government and the international community to undertake  
collaborative efforts that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's  
Internet. For more information: www.internet2.edu

About Jasig

Jasig, Inc., is a non-profit, international consortium of educational  
institutions and commercial affiliates supporting open source software  
development and promoting open computing architectures for higher  
education. Jasig has been in operation for over nine years, holding  
regular conferences and sponsoring open source software applications  
like uPortal, the enterprise-grade portal solution, and CAS, a  
flexible Central Authentication Service deployed for single sign-on.  
For more information, visit the Jasig website at http://www.jasig.org.