1. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 Middleware in Australia - Update TF-ECM2 Malaga 16-Oct-06 Alex Reid Director, eResearch/Middleware AARNet

2. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 2 Areas of Middleware Activity in Australia  MAMS (Meta Access Management System):  Shibboleth Federation: grant programme to accelerate take-up  Shibboleth extensions (eg ShARPE, Autograph, People Picker)  Shibbolised DSpace, Fedora, Zope/Plone, MediaWiki, …  Shibbolised GridSphere portal, MyProxy  CAUDIT PKI Investigations  Grid & Research Community:  PKI  Nimrod-G  Ontologies  Middleware Action Plan & Strategy Project (MAPS)  NCRIS Platforms for Collaboration – Decisions  eduroam taken over by AARNet  Funding:  SII – multiple rounds  NCRIS  “private”

3. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 3 AHERTF  Preference for lightweight as much as possible  More work on governance needed (eg can we avoid liability issues?)  CAUDIT to convene discussion; no view yet on final owner  High-level overarching policy, 2+ implementations (Shib + PKI)  Parallel, connected OAs  Non-compliance processes - avoid liability if possible - best efforts  User education  Systemic investments:  AHERTF governance & policy development  initial get it up and running  investment to achieve economical & reliable sustainability - this is critical  contribution to operation of OAs  local costs borne locally

4. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 4 Shibboleth  Continue testbed, move to formal when AHERTF ready  Develop policy within AHERTF  Develop agreed attribute sets & naming (eg eduPerson, Aust extensions, how to extend it locally if necessary - note that many institutions are currently planning to re-do their IdP, so a good time to do this)  Align Shib & PKI - formal launch together  OA to manage Shib tasks, eg WAYF & further development & rollout (AARNet?)  Systemic investments:  ongoing tasks of OA  accounting/finance/audit features development  SP implementation assistance  IdP hosting & policy  non-http Shib (for Grid end-users) - WS-* version of Shib

5. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 5 PKI  One body to coordinate all certs across Aust in HE/research sector  Undertake a WebTrust audit  CA/RA policies must be accepted by institutions  Align PKI & Shib  Explore other government standards (eg as used by AGIMO, DST)  OA manage PKI tasks (AusCERT?)  Systemic investments:  ongoing tasks of OA  help existing CAs moving to CA in special cases (eg APAC)  initial audit framework & 1st iteration assessment (set up for least-cost ongoing audit)  IdP hosting (will we need only one for both Shib & PKI?)

6. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 6 Grid Middleware  Will be part of national federation  Develop AAA deeper into the Grid (more for Shib than PKI)  Systemic investments: deeper integration  VOs:  attribute management, not Id management, where possible  attribute definitions beyond VO context (is eduPerson enough or need extending?)  how manage extra attributes, eg after VO closed down?  this area is important to NCRIS  are there multiple ways of doing this?  delegation of attribute management  client tools to use VO membership information  some may need IdP hosting

7. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 7 Authorisation  Encourage shift to policy-based AuthR, vs Id-based  Client tools  Language to express policy (eg see B+, XACML)  Go for small set of widely-used policies  Systemic investments:  demonstrators  human  policy

8. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 8 NCRIS PfC Middleware Agreed 15-Sep  Define functionality of AHERTF  Need more on business case for it; in particular, do we need to cover off on alternative technologies and why we've rejected them?  Can NCRIS accelerate this?  AusCERT to further develop policy/structure for AHERTF  MAMS to develop use cases  Look at how PKI/security structure/standards being proposed relates to AGIMO, etc  Establish a Shibbolised Wiki for the project  Another meeting for late November; then final meeting Feb??

9. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 9 Uncertainties  Funding and location of Operating Agencies  Need use cases, business cases  Need "killer app" for PKI  Need "killer app" for Shib  Funding for non-research-sector components  Capitalising on MAMS momentum

10. Alex Reid, AARNet Australia Middleware Update; 16-Oct-06 10 Thank You alex.reid@aarnet.edu.au www.middleware.edu.au http://www.federation.org.au/FedManager/jsp/index.jsp https://mams.melcoe.mq.edu.au/zope/mams http://www.aarnet.edu.au/engineering/middleware/ http://www.eduroam.edu.au/