The JISCs Core Middleware Programme

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The JISCs Core Middleware Programme

• Terry Morrow
• JISC Consultant

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Summary

• Athens
• JISC Core Middleware Programme
• Technology Development
• Infrastructure
• Early adopter programme
• The Future

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The Athens Story

• Athens developed in the UK
• over 10 years old
• solution to problem of multiple identities
  accessing multiple remote services
• centralised authentication authorisation
• Technology plus infrastructure
• Help desk, local administrators etc
• Very successful
• 500 HE/FE institutions over 2 million usernames
  registered
• Ahead of its time
• Most service providers have provided an Athens
  compliant access mechanism
• Mandatory for recent supplier contracts with JISC
• Approximately 200 licensed resources controlled
  via Athens

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Athens good, but not perfect

• Requires management of separate Athens accounts
• Users must obtain separate Athens username
  password (Classic Athens)
• Have to remember Athens username/password only
  used for remote services
• AthensDA works more like Shibboleth (local ids
  used)
• Little take-up of Athens outside UK
• though used in other sectors in the UK - eg
  Health service
• Service providers have to licence Athens - cost
• Centralised service relatively high operational
  costs
• Not well suited to increasingly complex
  authorisation scenarios
• Meanwhile, other countries starting to adopt
  SAML/Shibboleth based technologies
• USA (InCommon), Switzerland (SWITCHaai), Finland
  (HAKA)

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JISCs Core Middleware Programme

• Programme
• Commenced April 2004 two components
• Technology Development
• Infrastructure
• Aims
• better understanding of middleware potential and
  application within HE and FE
• build a working Shibboleth infrastructure
• support take-up and use of Shibboleth within HE
  and FE
• ensure developments are embedded within HE and FE
• ensure join-up across JISC development in
  relation to middleware
• More details online at
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_middleware.html

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Core MiddlewareTechnology Development Programme
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Technology Development

• Core Middleware Technology Development Programme
  
• April 2004 March 2007
• Programme has funded 15 different projects
• Supports investigations into several key areas
• Internal (intra-institutional) applications
• Access to external, third-party resources
• Inter-institutional use
• stable, long-term resource sharing between
  defined groups e.g. shared e-learning scenarios
• ad hoc collaborations, potentially dynamic in
  nature (virtual organisations or VOs)

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Technologies

• Some of the technologies investigated
• PERMIS (Privilege and Role Management
  Infrastructure Standards)
• RADIUS (Wireless Networking and Roaming)
• SHIBBOLETH
• 15 Projects include eg
• PERMIS/Shibboleth integration (SIPS project,
  Salford)
• DyVOSE Dynamic Virtual Organisations in
  e-Science Education (Glasgow/Edinburgh)
• ESP-GRID Evaluation of Shibboleth PKI for
  Grids Oxford University
• Supported By
• SDSS (Shibboleth Development Support Services)
  - Edinburgh University
• Study of Institutional Roles
• Expert reports (e.g. Single Sign-on Gilmore,
  Farvis, Maddock)

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Core MiddlewareInfrastructure Programme
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Infrastructure Programme

• Aim - establish a working UK Shibboleth
  infrastructure
• Government Comprehensive Spending Review funding
• Additional funding to JISCs main annual budget
• Approx 3.4m from Apr 2004 to Mar 2006
• Main work areas
• Making Data Centre services (MIMAS and EDINA)
  Shibboleth compliant
• Creating Athens/Shibboleth gateways
• Funding for organisations willing to be early
  Shibboleth adopters
• Creating a service to assist the early adopters
• Establishing a national UK federation (to be
  known as Sparta)
• Liaising with suppliers publishers, subscription
  agents etc

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Early Adopters

• Early Adopter Programme runs from March 2005
  December 2006
• Two strands
• Institutional Adopters (introducing Shibboleth at
  a university, FE college etc)
• 12 projects
• Funding up to 50,000 available per institution
• Distributed E-learning Regional Pilot projects
• 9 of the projects funded to add Shibboleth
  capability
• Up to 40,000 available
• Additional call recently issued closing date 19
  Sep
• 18 responses now being evaluated not all can be
  funded
• 4 responses from Scotland

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Early Adopters

• 12 Institutional early adopter projects funded
• ShibboLEAP (consortium of 6 London University
  colleges)
• Leeds (GILEAD)
• Nottingham (UNISA)
• Nottingham Trent (East Midlands deployment)
• UK Data Archive (SAFARI)
• Newcastle (SAPIR)
• Bristol (Metaleth)
• Liverpool (LSIP)
• Cardiff (ASMIMA)
• Exeter (Project SWISh)
• St Georges Hospital Med Sch (ADAMS)
• Liverpool (Cheshire Project)

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E-Learning Early Adopters

• The following are including Shibboleth in their
  e-learning pilot projects
• University of Newcastle (EPICS)
• University of Central England
• University of Nottingham (RIPPLL)
• Liverpool John Moores University
• University of Staffordshire
• Birkbeck, University of London (L4ALL)
• University of Wolverhampton
• University College Worcester
• University of Essex (EERN) (Chimera)

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Examples of Early Adopter Projects

• Leeds University GILEAD
• Creating a Shibboleth IdP based on AthensIM for
  access to Nathan Bodington VLE
• Eliminate requirement is issue Athens accounts by
  using Athens gateway
• Nottingham University UNISA
• Deploying Eduserv implementation of Shibboleth
  IdP
• Had hoped to register all new students this
  September with only local identities
• Bristol University Metaleth
• Implement Shibboleth
• Integrate with Ex Libriss Metalib SFX link
  server
• UK Data Archive SAFARI
• Access control to a wide range of social science
  survey data
• Embedding in one-stop registration service

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More Examples

• Cardiff University ASMIMA
• Implement Shibboleth IdP
• Move from 10,000 Athens accounts to using local
  identifiers via Shibboleth
• Investigating using Shibboleth to control access
  to National Health Service resources
• Exeter University SWISh
• Implement Shibboleth IdP
• Implement a pilot service with a small number of
  users
• Expand service
• Investigate using with university portal, VLE,
  Library management service
• Newcastle University SAPIR
• Replacement of Athens with Shibboleth
• Configuration of online Reading List Management
  Ex Libriss Metalib
• Test Environment for Aleph Library Management
  System

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ShibboLEAP

• Consortium of 6, led by LSE
• Royal Holloway, SOAS, KCL, UCL, Birkbeck,
  Imperial
• Members of the SHERPA-LEAP consortium
• SHERPA Securing a Hybrid Environment for
  Research Preservation Access (Nottingham)
• LEAP London E-prints Access Project
• Aims
• Establish general purpose Shibboleth origins at
  each college.
• Integrate the ePrints.org server making it a
  target

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Middleware Assisted Take-Up Service (MATU)

• Dedicated support service for early adopters
• Scoping future requirements for institutions
  adopting Shibboleth
• Support services include
• Comprehensive website
• Documentation
• Help desk
• Onsite support
• Training events
• Links to, and information about, software
• See http//www.matu.ac.uk

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Future

• UK Federation will be established over next 6-9
  months
• will cover UK higher/further education research
• Federation will be known as SPARTA
• UK HE WAYF (Where Are You From) service to be
  established
• Athens contract with JISC due for renewal 2006
• Likely to be renewed for further 2 years (but
  possible conditions)
• Expectation that support will diminish/stop after
  that

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Challenges (1)

• Ensure that the new Sparta federation covers both
  HE/FE and Research
• Multiple federations issues
• Getting national federations to interwork
• Establishing how multiple federations within a
  country inter-operateEg
• Sparta and the new BECTA federation
• Sparta and NHS federation
• InCommon and the US Federal Government

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Challenges (2)

• Suppliers (eg publishers) need to be persuaded to
  adopt the technology
• May be pushing at open doors
• Some (eg Elsevier, JSTOR) taking the initiative
• Cultural, organisational change
• Shifting functions from libraries to computing
  services
• Persuading institutions to move from Athens to
  Shibboleth
• resistance to change
• short term cost for long term gain
• Early adopter experiences will encourage other
  institutions
• strong interest in second call for early adopters
  18 bids
• Educating the community on the advantages of a
  Shibboleth regime
• examples more flexible subscription models fine
  control of courseware access

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Further Information

• JISC web pages http//www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_
  middleware.html
• Internet2 http//shibboleth.internet2.edu
• MATUhttp//www.matu.ac.uk
• JISCmail listsJISC-ShibbolethJISC-Shibboleth-An
  nounce

Terry Morrow JISC Consultant t.morrow_at_jisc.ac.uk