Post on 17-Jan-2016
FederationsPenn State Case Study
Renée Shuey
Senior Systems Engineer
ITS – Emerging Technologies
October 13, 2003
Making a Business Case for Federations
• WebAssign
• LionShare (Federated P2P)
• Instant Messaging
• Office of Student AID/AES/PHEAA
WebAssign
• What is WebAssign?– A web resource utilized by physics departments
for tests, quizzes, and real time answers– Developed/Housed at NCSU– Provides services to 375 institutions
• ~90% HE 10% K-12
– Business• Contracts vary among institutions
WebAssign
• Federation or Authorization?– What is the protected resource?– Would others benefit from a WebAssign
federation?– Unique requirements?
• Contractual
• Marketing
• Attributes needed to make authorization decision
WebAssign
• InCommon Solution– Providing resource of interest to larger
community without expense of security risk managing external resources
– Leverage the scale of a shared trust fabric reducing the number of 1 to 1 relying party agreements
Instant Messaging/LionShare
• Assumption: A botanist at Penn State has more in common with a botanist at the University of Michigan than a nuclear physicist at Penn State
• Responsible file sharing among peers at different institutions
Instant Messaging/LionShare
• What is the scope?
• Benefit others?
• AuthN/AuthZ requirements?
• What is the resource I am protecting?– Intellectual property (university/professor)
Student Aid/AES/PHEAA
• Currently authenticating via 3 systems– University (userid/password)– PHEAA account (userid/password)– Federal (pin)
• Confusing….at best!• Hand off to PHEAA for an example of a
state wide higher ed federation…exciting stuff