SDCI Sec Improvement: Building from Bedrock: Infrastructure Improvements for Collaboration and Science

Internet2, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Over the last decade, new foundational authentication and authorization tools were developed and deployed within the US research/education infrastructure. These have substantially improved campus and inter-institutional capabilities to manage identity and access controls. It is time to systemically connect virtual organizations and scientific collaborations to this bedrock. This research will extend existing base layer components to facilitate connection of domain science applications to the new infrastructure and will connect scientific collaborative capabilities through direct and intensive work with emblematic NSF-supported Virtual Organizations (VOs) across several Directorates. Much of this bedrock is based on work developed under the NSF Middleware Initiative and resulted in two transformative cybersecurity paradigms: federated identity and domestication of applications. The intent of this research is to build on this bedrock to enable greater use by science and research communities. It centers on improvement and extension of base systems ? Shibboleth, Grouper, COmanage ? into an integrated VO-oriented toolkit. The toolkit is rooted in design and delivery to important and distinctive VOs, selected to insure service to a broad variety of VOs. The toolkit will be used to construct federated and domesticated VO applications, both collaborative (wikis, lists, ad hoc calendaring, shared calendars, audioconferencing) and domain science (federated SSH, cvs, fileshares). It will provide integrated identity management, access controls, group management, and provisioning/de-provisioning with these services connected to the bedrock for scalable and robust collaborations. The tools will enable three primary approaches to collaborative research environments: command line orientation, science gateway, and collaboration management platform. The research should enhance critical cross-cutting areas regarding CI software, long-term sustainability, and self-manageability, and facilitate advances in CI-based science, engineering, and education through enhanced identity authentication and authorization.