About

iFIRE eXtension for Managed Application Network (iFIRExMAN) is a project that extends the BACKFIRE and iFIRE projects activities and efforts. The duration of the project is from 7 March 2022 until 6 March 2023, and is supported by Asi@Connect Grant Contract ACA 2016/376-562.

Activities

The programme will focus on three broad activities:

Activity 1: TF-IAM Training Programme & Best-Practices Development.

Activity 2: Developing an Identity Federation software ecosystem based on Cloud Native technology that supports Cloud (NREN) + On-Premises (Campus) implementations by setting up a community-based incubator infrastructure for new identity federation pilot operations.

Activity 3: IAMREADY - an Identity & Access Management & Roaming Competition supporting hack-a-thon & deploy-a-thon events.

Overview

Federated Identity is an enabling technology for the community. It provides a trust and secure framework to allow communities accessing online services such as library resources, digital repository, video conferencing, learning and management systems, among others. It also works as a collaborative platform to allow secure resource sharing among communities. It has been widely implemented. This is reflected by the number of eduGAIN (an inter-federation network) members that has reached 74 members from 72 economies (https://technical.edugain.org/status). Furthermore, in the current pandemic situation, Federated Identity has been a backbone for remote access.

TF-IAM has had a significant contribution to the development and deployment of Federated Identity technologies throughout the Asi@Connect membership. Since its initial activity being led by GÉANT via the BACKFIRE project, it has transitioned to a community activity led by the AAF via iFIRE and will further draw its knowledge from the Asia/Pacific region with SIFULAN/Malaysia leading this phase of the project.

Globally there exist many activities and collaborations such as REFEDS (the Research and Education FEDerations group), FIM4L (Federated Identity Management for Libraries), and eduGAIN (EDUcation Global Authentication INfrastructure), that are supporting the development and growth of federated identity management across the world. These activities provide content, services, training materials, policy templates and much more that are available to identity federation operators to enhance their offerings to their committees of researchers. iFIRExMAN will take advantage of the great wealth of knowledge, content and services provided to ensure the best outcomes for the Asia/Pacific region.

Objectives

    1. Strengthen the community of identity management professionals in the Research and Education (R&E) space, particularly within Asi@Connect beneficiary and participating economies, and share best practices in the community.
    2. Simplify the deployment of federated identity applications on-campus and in the cloud via a managed application/appliance network based on Cloud Native technology such as Kubernetes, Helm, gitOps, among others.
    3. Provide incentives for SAMLifying/federating applications to improve the range of modern web frameworks able to be deployed/used.

Federated IAM provides a Web based Authentication and Authorization layer connecting researchers across the APAN region to local, regional and global services. Local researchers from within their institutions will have the opportunity to access national, regional and global research services. The traffic generated by these opportunities will transit the TEIN network (which to a small part will include the authentication transaction provided by federated IAM). TEIN network is required for information exchange (e.g. metadata updates, SAML message exchanges among Identity/Service Providers and Federation operators). After successful authentication the amount of traffic transiting the TEIN network will depend on the service but it could be substantial. For example, researchers accessing the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) large-scale physics experiment and observatory will be accessing and processing large data sets over the TEIN network. Advanced access to LIGO is enabled via federated IAM services on campus (campus IAM), at the NREN (federated IAM) and globally (eduGAIN).

Organisers

Funded & Supported by