Meteor Showers

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Meteor Showers
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AGENDA

• Status of Meteor Development
• Meteor Architecture
• Implementation Requirements
• Meteor and Information Technology
• Implementation Benefits

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Status of Meteor Development
Tim Cameron
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Meteor Implementation Phases

• Current Phase
• Multiple data providers
• Multiple access providers
• Loan Summary Loan Detail Information
• Financial aid professional (school) access

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Meteor Implementation Phases

• Next phase
• Financial aid professional and student/borrower
  access

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The Current State of Meteor Affairs

• March 18-20, 2002 Tallahassee, FL (OSFA)
• Purpose was to finalize configuration and setup
  of the Meteor code and its counterpart, HPC
• Very successful, exceeded expectations of the
  testing team

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The Current State of Meteor Affairs

• April 30 2002 - May 2, 2002 Meteor Security and
  Authentication Conference Calls
• Introduction
• Policy Review
• Model/Process Flow Review
• Technical Review

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The Current State of Meteor Affairs

• May 15-17, 2002 Chicago, IL (ISAC)
• Simulated Network of 24 Hubs
• Simulated Registry Server
• Tested the LDAP and Security
• Populated the Registry Information Including
  Public and Signed Keys
• Set Up Several Access Providers
• Set Up Several Data Providers
• Began Testing Business Cases
• Tested Connections, Data Retrieval and
  Information Display
• Tested Error Messages

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The Current State of Meteor Affairs

• Threat Analysis
• Reworking the Data Provider Agreement
• Finalizing development of the Implementation
  Guide
• Meteor Logo Review

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The Current State of Meteor Affairs

• Estimated current phase public code release set
  for August 1, 2002
• Early adopter implementation begins at public
  release through the end of 2002

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Early Adopters

• AES
• Connecticut Student Loan Foundation - GA
• Connecticut Student Loan Foundation - Lender
• Georgia Higher Education Assistance Corporation
• Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation
• Illinois Student Assistance Commission

• NELA
• National Student Loan Program
• Sallie Mae
• Student Loan Guarantee Foundation of Arkansas
• Texas Guaranteed
• USAFunds

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RFP Update

• Sponsor Technical Review Team
• Bill Hurry, South Carolina
• Brian Allison, USA Funds
• Tim Cameron, NCHELP
• Rick Johnson, NSLP
• Russ Judd, Great Lakes
• Jim Kuhlen, CSLF
• Charlie Miller, Rhode Island
• Karl Ross, PHEAA
• Mike Sessa, ASA
• Sherry Shamloo, Sallie Mae

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RFP Update

• NCHELP Board Committee
• Mark Valenti, CSLF
• Carl Dalstrom, USA Funds
• Richard George, Great Lakes
• Bill Hurry, Rhode Island
• Bill Mackie, South Carolina

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Meteor Architecture Nathan Biggs
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Meteor Maturity

• With the reference implementation IMM did a
  great job of proving the technology
• The past year has been spent gathering the
  business requirements and matching them to the
  appropriate architectural solution
• Usage scenarios
• Business rules
• Data/system security
• Authentication and authorization

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Meteor Architecture

• Meteor employs a web services architecture
• No central data repository
• Peer-to-peer communications
• Seamless aggregation of information for users
• They just get what they want
• Until now, true web service applications have
  been largely theoretical

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Meteor Foundation Technology

• SOAP, LDAP, XML, Java
• These tools are freely available
• Open Source, as well as
• Commercially Supported
• Can run many platforms
• Linux, Sun Solaris, Other Unices
• AS/400, OS/390
• Microsoft Windows
• Apple Mac OSX

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Meteor Architecture
Meteor System
Authenticate
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
Access Provider
Portal or Web Site Request
HTTPS
XML Request
Index Provider
Authenticate
XML Response
Custom Code
Generic Rules Engine
XML Request
Data Provider
Authenticate
XSLT
XML Response
XML Response
Legacy Data
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Architectural Benefits

• Foundation for continued growth in collaborative
  student aid services
• Flexibility in implementation and deployment
• Low/no cost options for establishing this
  foundation

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Implementation Requirements Brian
Allison
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Technology Requirements

• UML Uniform Modeling Language
• XML or Extensible Markup Language
• JSP or Java Server Pages ,XML, XSLT
• JDBC for connecting to SQL DBs
• Ability to build connections to non-SQL, legacy
  DBs
• TCP/IP SOAP

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Access Provider Requirements

• A web site that acts as a portal to launch the
  Meteor channel
• The ability to implement the Meteor software
• The ability to send Meteor request messages and
  deal with Meteor response messages (if building
  of you own presentation)
• Abiding by the rules of the game

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Data Provider Requirements

• Ability to respond to Meteor data requests
• Connections to legacy data systems
• Gathering data and passing it back to the Meteor
  software
• Formatting or mapping the data to the Meteor XML
  message
• Abiding by the rules of the game

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Meteor and Information Technology Nathan
Biggs
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Meteors Foundation Principles

• Open Source
• Open Collaboration
• Freely Available
• Controlled Participation Network
• But, do the current IT trends support this model?
• Lets examine similar efforts

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IT and Open Source

• Linux is the most successful open source effort
• "What's really happening in a nutshell is Linux
  is becoming a dominant force in the financial
  services industry" Michael Evans, Head of
  Business Development, Red Hat
• Investment bank Morgan Stanley called Linux an
  "important evolutionary platform" and said
  Reuters' decision to support the standard was
  "important to our efforts and ... strategic to
  Morgan Stanley."
• CSFB increased performance by 20 at a lower cost
  by using open technology

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The Meteor Network

• But what about the participatory network aspect
  of Meteor?
• There is no good current example
• That does not mean that the approach is flawed,
  but just that it is new

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Meteor is Cutting Edge

• In the world of web services applications, Meteor
  is leading the way
• Meteors open-source web service architecture can
  be the example for student aid services, as well
  as other education applications, and even growing
  into broader IT considerations

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Implementation Benefits Nathan Biggs
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Leveraging Technology

• Meteor has a big upside
• This release will have a moderate impact
• Future releases will be big enhancements
• The infusion of new technology creates
  opportunity for individual agencies

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Opportunity Knocks

• Meteor implementation should be viewed as an
  opportunity to enhance customer service
• Customers are demanding more real-time access to
  information
• Meteor can be the vehicle for providing that
  access

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Summary

• The past year has been spent in making
  cutting-edge technology address real business
  objectives
• The Meteor architecture is advanced
  technologynot only in FFELP, but in all of IT
• This advanced technology provides collateral
  opportunities to enhance customer service.

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Meteor Ongoing Status

• For current status and updates
• Meteor Project Info
  http//www.nchelp.org/Meteor/Meteor.htm
• Meteor Implementers Page
  http//www.nchelp.org/Meteor/MeteorImplementorsPag
  e.htm
• Meteor Tech Info
  http//groups.yahoo.com/group/
  meteor_tech