Middleware Announcements

[Renee Frost <>]

Shibbing News
September 2004

# InCommon Opening This Month
InCommon will be accepting applications for participation this month.

InCommon makes sharing protected online resources easier. Built on 
Shibboleth authentication and authorization technology, InCommon enables 
cost-effective, privacy-preserving collaboration among InCommon 
participants. The InCommon Federation eliminates the need for researchers, 
students and educators to maintain multiple, password-protected accounts 
for resources accessible through the Federation. The Federation is intended 
to support user access to protected resources by allowing organizations to 
make decision about granting access to resources based on information 
presented by the user's home institution about a user's status privileges. 
For more information see:  http://www.incommonfederation.org/

# Proceedings from CAMP Shibboleth
CAMP Shibboleth Implementation Workshop (June 28-30, 2004) proceedings are 
now available online. You can find them at 
http://www.educause.edu/meeting/proceedings_sessions.asp?meeting=camp042.
[nb: maybe we should point to link on Middleware Home page its shorter 
http://middleware.internet2.edu/ ]

# Useful Utilities - EZproxy in testing
Useful Utilities - EZproxy has moved from pending to comitted status on the 
Shibboleth Enabled Applications and Services page (see url below). Chris 
Zagar has informed us that there is a beta version of EZproxy that acts as 
a Service Provider. It is available for testing. Contact Chris if you are 
interested in participating in the testing at zagar @ usefulutilities.com

Shibboleth Enabled Applications and Services page: 
http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/seas.html

# WebCT announces Shib-enabled product at the User Conference
Mark Wilcox says that WebCT has released a Shibboleth single-sign-on 
PowerLinks module for WebCT Vista customers and is available on the WebCT 
PowerLinks Developer's Network community. The module is written in pure 
Java and includes source-code. For more information about the module 
contact Mark Wilcox at mark.wilcox @ webct.com

If you are interested in doing pilot testing with WebCT, be sure to contact 
Mark Wilcox at mark.wilcox @ webct.com

# Elsevier testing moving forward.
Elsivier's testing is moving forward with half a dozen campuses now. There 
have been a couple conference calls working out the details.

# Duke University PR piece on Shib
Shibboleth was recently highlighted in the Duke Dialog: "'Shibboleth' 
Relieves Password Overload, Enhances Computer Privacy: Duke taking lead 
role in national password project" The article includes information about 
Shib with quotes from Michael Gettes. For more point your browser at 
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/news/shibboleth_0904.html

# Shibboleth related sessions at Internet2 Fall Member Meeting
The Internet2 Fall Member Meeting is in Austin, TX this year September 
27-30. Below are some of the sessions related to Shibboleth. The entire 
program is online at 
http://events.internet2.edu/2004/fall-mm/agenda.cfm?event=219

Monday Sept 27
4:45 PM - 6:00 PM -- Shibboleth and Federations Working Group
This is the working group session for Shibboleth and Federations.

Tuesday Sept 28

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM -- Federations
Federations are associations of organizations that want to collaborate, 
using federating software such as Shibboleth, Liberty, and WS-Fed. The R&E 
community is setting the pace in the development of federations, both in 
the US and internationally. This session will present the policy and 
technology issues in federations and how a number of leading edge efforts 
are addressing these issues.

Wednesday Sept 29

1:15 PM - 2:30 PM -- Middleware-Enabled Collaborative Applications
In this panel, three projects focused on developing middleware-enabled 
applicationswill be presented. The I2IM Working Group  focuses on 
middleware-enabling chat/presence tools such as Jabber; Lionshare focuses 
on middleware-enabled P2P file sharing; and the NMI-Enabled Collaboration 
Tools project focuses on discovering and documenting methods for retooling 
existing applications so that they are middleware enabled. This project is 
related to work of the I2 MLIST Working Group .

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM -- Shibboleth for Non-Web-Based Applications
The newest version of Shibboleth, the open, standards-based solution for 
controlling access to resources in a secure and privacy-preserving manner, 
has evolved to address applications in the non-web environments and 
three-tier-related world, such as those experienced with grids, P2P 
applications and portals. Developers that are enhancing their applications 
with Shib will discuss their approaches and the benefits of these new 
capabilities.

Thursday Sept 30
8:45 AM - 10:00 AM -- NSF Middleware Initiative: Threads of Collaboration 
and Integration
Woven through the NMI-EDIT work is the thread of collaboration and 
integration with Grid environments, campus infrastructures, industry 
partners, and national and international trust fabrics. This session will 
offer a overview of these activities and discuss future milestones for the 
project. This session is sponsored by the NMI-EDIT Consortium of Internet2, 
EDUCAUSE, and SURA.

In conjunction with the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting events, there will be 
separate Shibboleth Installation and Configuration Tutorials ("Install 
Fest") on Monday, September 27th in Austin, Texas. These sessions are 
intended to provide hands-on focused instruction for those of you planning 
to install and configure the Shibboleth System software in the near future.

The schedule is as follows:
Monday 9/27
8:30am - 11:30am Shibboleth Identity Provider (Origin) Installation Fest 
This session will offer a hands-on tutorial in installing the Shibboleth 
Identity Provider software. Attendees will leave with a working version.

1:00pm - 2:30pm Shibboleth Identity Provider Configuration Fest This 
session will take real-world applications and environments and demonstrate 
how to make Shibboleth technology enable these scenarios in an efficient 
way. Attendees who have experience with and/or have deployed Shibboleth 
will benefit most from this session.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION There are a few seats available in both sessions, 
but space is *very* limited. The registration deadline has been extended to 
12:00 noon PDT Tuesday, September 21.  You MUST register by sending e-mail 
to shib-installfest-contact @ internet2.edu indicating your interest in 
attending, and we will follow up with you. These tutorials are offered free 
of charge.


Renée Woodten Frost
Associate Director, Middleware and Security
Internet2
3025 Boardwalk Suite 100
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108
phone:  734-913-4293    fax:  734-913-4255