A message from Shel Waggener (Senior Vice President, Internet2) re: Shib Consortium

Steve Olshansky steveo at internet2.edu
Mon Dec 17 12:30:29 EST 2012


Sending to this list on behalf of Shel Waggener.
	Steve

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Steve Olshansky
Director, Federated Technologies, Internet2
www.internet2.edu
www.incommon.org



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Subject: Message to the Community Regarding the Shibboleth Consortium

I’m writing this note to Internet2’s InCommon community with an update
about the Shibboleth Consortium and our role.

As you may know, the Shibboleth project began under the Internet2
Middleware Initiative in 1999, with subsequent significant support from
the National Science Foundation. Later that year, the project connected
with the work of the OASIS SAML Working Group, participating in SAML
from its initiation.

As a founding member of this effort, Internet2 has been and remains
firmly committed to the ongoing development and sustenance of Shibboleth
as a critical software component for many campus identity management
systems. For 2012, Internet2 provided staff at the same level that we
always have in previous years. Moving forward, we expect to continue our
financial, technical and philosophical leadership role in this important
project.

Importantly, as part of this leadership role we began a process nearly
three years ago to help expand the global support and adoption for
Shibboleth by creating a newly formed organization, the Shibboleth
Consortium. Internet2, JISC (the operator of the UK Access Management
Federationfor Education and Research) and SWITCH (the operator of
SWITCHaai, the Swiss Research and Education federation) were the
founding members of the consortium and remain the sustaining members
today, providing the bulk of the funding for the Shibboleth Consortium.

The global partnership has worked to raise visibility of the project’s
efforts. While there have been some bumps along the way and transitions
in individual participants at the three founding organizations, all
remain committed to the project’s objectives of furthering the use of
Shibboleth within the higher education community and expanding the
adoption and support within the commercial sector.

Consortium members have taken additional steps recently to strengthen
the governance, funding, and project plan for the Shibboleth efforts and
are releasing an updated charter this month. The consortium board has
representatives from Internet2, JISC, SWITCH, and the development
community that will chart the course for the project in the coming year.
I am now serving as Internet2’s board representative and believe this
global partnership in the middleware space is critical to future
seamless adoption of cloud services within education.

The consortium board is hard at work on a revised business plan, which
will include a reviewed and approved project plan, a six-quarter
roadmap, an updated governance model, and a clear statement of the
needed resources to support future development of the Shibboleth system
in a sustainable manner.

Here in the United States, I believe the best way for campuses to
participate in the Shibboleth Consortium is through InCommon. Toward
that end, we will be developing a process by which InCommon
participating campuses can help influence the Shibboleth development
plan. As we’ve found with the InCommon Certificate Service, and with
many of the Internet2 NET+ Services, coming together as a community and
aggregating our input seems to be the best way to make our collective
voices heard.

I look forward to working with you in assuring the continued development
and success of Shibboleth. If you have questions about the Shibboleth
Consortium, please contact me at swaggener at internet2.edu
<mailto:swaggener at internet2.edu>

Shel Waggener
Senior Vice President, Internet2 




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