Several members of the community have suggested a review and recommendation process around what we've learned from building identity federations, and how we can operationally improve federations going forward. The topic has been discussed in a variety of forums, including the "Future of Federations" blog post series, and the TIIME workshop session "Federations in 15 years",
Overview
Design, resource, and deploy a global metadata distribution infrastructure for both per-entity and aggregate metadata serving needs, for all federations to use, at global scale.
Per-entity metadata and dynamic federation ideas force a rethinking of how Federations Operators signify their validation or endorsement of certain metadata statements, and consequently a rethinking of much of the process of operating a federation.
Terms
The following terms apply to all REFEDS Working Groups:
- When a working group is agreed, REFEDS Participants will be asked if they wish to participate. Working Groups tend to be small, so consensus can be achieved quickly between participants.
- A chair for the group is chosen from the REFEDS Participants.
- GÉANT provides facilities for the working group, including meeting support, wiki space, mailing lists and, where appropriate, funding.
- An appropriate output from the group is produced. Currently, this is typically a draft white paper or a wiki page.
- When the Working Group is in agreement, the chair shares the outputs with the wider REFEDS community with an open period for discussion and comment. This is typically a period of 4 weeks, but may be longer if appropriate.
- After this period of time, the REFEDS Steering Committee signs off on the work item. Work is either written up as a formal white paper, left on the wiki but promoted as finished work or occasionally submitted as an Internet Draft.
Chair
TBC
Deliverables
- Define workflows that endow trust in dynamic federation metadata, ie, work out operational aspects of Roland's paper.
- Define an architecture or design in which it is easy for each recipient to validate dynamic metadata.
- List ramifications for standard federation operating procedures in a dynamic metadata environment.
Requirements
Timeline
Work to conclude by mid 2019.