Shibboleth Board Update

[Shelton Waggener]

Colleagues,

The Shibboleth Consortium, comprised of developer, programmatic, institutional and national research and education network organizations, continues its work to advance the use of Shibboleth software for implementation of federated identity solutions with and beyond the academy.

The Consortium Board, comprised of representatives from Internet2 (USA), JISC (UK), SWITCH (Switzerland), and a developer representative (Scott Cantor) meet regularly to review progress on the project, evaluate the product roadmap, assess resource requirements, and engage with community members. There are several activities currently underway that we wanted to bring your attention to:

• Shibboleth IdP V2: New work on V2 will sunset with the spring release of V2.4, with maintenance continuing from the core development team.

• Shibboleth IdP V3: Work continues on design documents for V3 and an ongoing gap assessment against our planned timelines. Design work on OpenSAML V3 and new attribute resolver/filter components are on track and expected to be completed this quarter. Significant progress on other subsystems, such as storage, and session/authentication behavior has also been made, and work products from a recent multi-day design meeting are being produced. More details for the developer community can be found on the wiki at: https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/IDP30

• Staffing:  the project continues to expand its team to help keep the project on track.   Tom Zeller is a helpful addition to the team and has been contributing design input as the lead for the Shibboleth IdP. Daniel Fisher also has recently joined the team.

• Updated Consortium Charter and Agreement: The Board has updated and revised the original draft charter prepared in 2010 and expects to sign the new consortium agreement within the next few weeks.  We also developed a resolution that helps clarify some of the overall objectives of our effort.  We will publish a link to those documents as versions are finalized.

• Project CIFER: an effort by several not for profit education software development teams to coordinate their work around Identity, has approached Internet2 and the Shibboleth Consortium to join their efforts to align activities and roadmaps so campuses can have a clearer understanding of anticipated integration issues in this space. Partner discussions are underway with Apereo (the merger of the Sakai and JASIG organizations), Kuali Foundation, and Internet2. We will report more on this effort later in the spring.

• Enlarging the Consortium: In the past months, the following organizations have joined the consortium as members: Overt Software Solutions, Clareity Security, GakuNin, LIGO, Gluu, Indiana University, RENATER, NORDUnet, CESNET, Aconet, the University of Vienna and CSC. The Board considers a broad membership key to the long-term sustainability of Shibboleth and will increase its effort to gain new members in the course of this year.

Finally, we are sorry to announce the planned departure of Nicole Harris as Director of the Shibboleth Consortium. Nicole has been instrumental in every aspect of the effort’s progress over the last several years and has also served double duty representing UK/JISC needs as a board member.  She is moving on from JISC in the middle of March to take on a new role and will be backfilled in her consortium work by longtime JANET staff member Henry Hughes. Henry has been involved in UK Identity and Access management efforts and makes a great addition to the team. Please join us in thanking Nicole and welcoming Henry!

Regards,
The Shibboleth Consortium Board

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