In November 2016 InCommon announced a fee increase, the first since 2012 (for additional background see the FAQ on the wiki). The purpose of this post is to let you know how the InCommon Federation is using these additional resources...

Consent-Informed Attribute Release (CAR) is a project to develop a user consent module that integrates institutional and individual preferences for releasing attributes to relying parties. CAR is intended to help users make informed and effective decisions, and to allow the institution full flexibility in managing when a user sees a consent decision and what choices are presented.

Great news! The OpenFlow VLAN to MPLS migration was completed on August 15. Thanks to the engineers involved in making this project happen smoothly.

During the 2016 Technology Exchange, a call for papers was announced that requested from the Internet2 community their perspectives on the investments to be made on national-footprint network services as we plan for the next generation of community infrastructure investment. 

Version 4.0.1, which corrects bugs and adds minor features, is currently in beta and is expected to be released in mid-August.

This is the first in a series of blog posts that will describe the migration of the Internet2 core Network backbone from OpenFlow to multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) forwarding and, in particular, the migration of AL2S VLAN circuits.

By David Marble, CEO, OSHEAN Inc.

We recently enjoyed our annual Member Forum, a daylong event centered on the theme of “disruption.” As I posted in an earlier blog, the word disruption, while a bit cliché, has an interesting depth that we thought would fit this audience by juxtaposing the concept of planning versus disruption. I postured that perfect planning eliminates disruption, but those of us in real-world IT know that is an unattainable ideal...

Internet2 is happy to announce the deployment of three new 200G lambdas (wavelengths) between our ASHB and WASH points of presence.

Coauthored by Jon Allen, Joanna Grama, Kim Milford and Nick Lewis

Sometimes working groups move so fast that it's difficult to keep the broader community updated frequently. The Shared Cloud Security Assessments (HECVAT) working group is one of those groups!

In December of 2016, MCNC and InCommon launched a proof of concept of the InCommon Steward Program, an effort to extend federation to K-14 (K-12 and community colleges). The proof of concept was intended to last for six months, followed by a recommendation on how to proceed. Both MCNC and InCommon agree that the next step will be a six-month business development phase...

CINO Collaborating with Internet2 Community on Smart Campus, Cybersecurity, TIPPSS, and More!

Chief Innovation Officer Florence Hudson presented at the Terena Networking Conference (TNC) in Linz, Austria, on the Internet2 smart campus initiative, in partnership with the Netherlands NREN SURFnet, and presented in the "Securing the Things" session with Ken Klingenstein from our Trust & Identity team on "TIPPSS for IoT" – Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety and Security – to discuss IoT opportunities on campus and how to develop solutions together.

I want to draw the attention of every InCommon participant to a set of expectations we all will be required to meet and the proposed processes for meeting them. The goal is to reduce the considerable variance of current participant operating practices and ensure that the InCommon Federation exhibits a baseline level of trustworthiness that enables its strategic value to Research and Education to continue to grow.

By Warren Curry, University of Florida

Internet2’s Trust and Identity in Education and Research (TIER) program provides a range of core functionality, including group and access management, single sign-on, and federation management. But peering deeper into the layer that forms the basis for Identity and Access Management (IAM) functionality, the TIER Entity Registry Working Group and the TIER Data Structures and APIs Working Group have proposed a data ecosystem required to support the TIER components. Central to this ecosystem is a well-defined strategy for the creation and use of data repositories. These repositories must be complete, flexible, and extensible...

The TIER Packaging working group has been focusing on the next steps beyond the initial delivery of the VM-based appliances and stand-alone Docker containers. The goal for this stage of our work is to provide documentation and automation, as appropriate, to support campus migration from current deployments to the use of TIER’s component distributions. The working group is converging on the use of Docker Swarm...

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to announce that Tom Barton now has an expanded role with Internet2, working on trust and identity research engagement, while also remaining at the University of Chicago.

Four InCommon working groups are asking for feedback on their charters, seeking members to participate, or are beginning their work. Anyone from the trust and identity community is welcome (and encouraged) to join and contribute. Working groups are a key mechanism for the community to accomplish its work and move various initiatives forward. A list of these working groups and links to their respective wikis are at https://spaces.internet2.edu/x/poNRBQ. Here are summaries of the new working groups.

This year’s Trust and Identity sessions at the annual Technology Exchange will include the traditional track sessions and unconference Advance CAMP. But our program committee members can’t resist making some tweaks to keep things interesting.

Announcing the entry of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) into NET+ Service Validation, led by Michigan State University. Service validation is a rigorous, community led process to customize and enhance a cloud service for use by Internet2 members and our extended community.

After addressing the 5 Things to Consider When Deploying High Performance Computing (HPC) to the Cloud, it may be helpful to consider cost and benefits of running HPC workloads in the cloud versus running them on premise. This post will discuss costs for an on prem data center in the Southeast, and instances running in NET+ Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NET+ Google Cloud Platform (GCP), currently in NET+ Service Validation. This is the second of two posts on the HPC in the Cloud BoF from Internet2 Global Summit.