Access & Identity Management
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Access Management: Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is an access management federation?
2. What is the UK Access Management Federation?
3. What are gateways, and why are they needed?
4. What is Athens?
5. What is OpenAthens?
6. Why can I not just buy the gateways?
7. Weren’t the JISC going to contract for these gateways centrally?
8. What effect will the removal of JISC funding for the gateways have on my institution?
9. What is Eduserv?
1. What is an access management federation?
An access management federation brings together organisations who wish to manage access from one organisation in the federation to the online resources provided by another, and who agree both the governance and technical framework for doing this.
2. What is the UK Access Management Federation?
The UK Access Management Federation is a new federation for educational and research institutions, and for organisations providing online services to these institutions. In its technical operations this Federation uses Shibboleth, an implementation of the open standard SAML (Security Assertion Mark-up Language).
3. What are gateways, and why are they needed?
Both organisations who provide services and those that wish to use them by means of the UK Access Management Federation need to implement Shibboleth compliant software. Although such software is available from Eduserv and others, many if not most organisations are unlikely to have it implemented, tested, and running by 1st August 2008. Current indications, at the time of writing (18 January 2008) suggests that less than 10% of organisations currently using the Athens service are in a position to shift entirely to use of their Shibboleth implementations. Gateways developed by Eduserv have, therefore, been implemented to enable access both from and to the Athens service by those organisations that have implemented Shibboleth. These gateways will be maintained and supported as part of OpenAthens.
4. What is Athens?
Athens is an access management service developed and run by Eduserv since 1995. The service has provided the means of achieving federated access to resources not only for all UK colleges and universities but also more than thousand other organisations, among them NHS trusts, the British Council, and US academic and medical institutions. Eduserv is committed to migrating Athens members to standards compliant access management using OpenAthens, and to facilitating multi-federation membership for OpenAthens subscribers (including, where relevant, membership of the UK Access Management Federation).
5. What is OpenAthens?
OpenAthens is the overarching framework that extends the tried and trusted Athens service to enable it to accommodate the emerging access and identity management technologies based on open standards. So whilst it includes OpenAthens Managed Directory, based on the existing Athens service, and OpenAthens Local Authentication, based on AthensDA, it also includes OpenAthens Service Provider enabling institutions to act as service providers themselves, and the gateways enabling access to both Athens and Shibbleth protected resources and vice versa. OpenAthens as whole therefore provides institutions with a full set of options with which to choose the most appropriate to meet both their short term needs, as well as a known path and cost for the adoption of technology to meet future demands and opportunities associated with emerging standards (for example, OpenID and Microsoft CardSpace).
6. Why can I not just buy the gateways?
The gateways allowing access to Athens protected resources from Shibboleth based identity providers and vice versa are integral to OpenAthens, are dependent on the underpinning Athens infrastructure and are integral to the concept of OpenAthens. The cost of implementing and running the gateways is incremental to that of the Athens infrastructure and the burden a gateway user places on the Athens infrastructure is similar to that of either OpenAthens Managed Directory or OpenAthens Local Authentication users. To uphold the principle of openness, therefore, a single price for OpenAthens including all three of these options enables institutions to choose that which best suits there needs, with each contributing to the cost of the Athens infrastructure and no associated cost penalty.
7. Weren’t the JISC going to contract for these gateways centrally?
During last year, the JISC indicated informally that it expected to contract centrally with Eduserv for gateway maintenance and services for the period from August 2008 to July 2011, although no terms were discussed with Eduserv before October. The gateways rely on the underlying Athens service to function and Eduserv believes that the terms offered by the JISC for centrally funded provision of the gateways from August 2008 do not take account of this given that the termination of the core JISC contract for Athens at July 2008. Eduserv believes its access and identity management capabilities have been, in the form of the Athens service, and will, in the form of OpenAthens, continue to be of major value to learning and research communities. Consequently, it seeks to focus on working closely with its community to further develop its shared services approach to enable these capabilities to be sustained. It has therefore had to decline the terms offered by the JISC.
8. What effect will the removal of JISC funding for the gateways have on my institution?
Eduserv have committed to the ongoing development and support of the gateways that enable access to Athens and Shibboleth protected resources using both Athens and Shibboleth identity provision. However, without the JISC funding this development, support and associated usage of the Athens infrastructure, these costs can only be met through the fees charged to institutions. To continue to provide all institutions with choice in this regard, Eduserv offers all of the functionality for Managed Directory, Local Authentication or use of the gateways to all institutions on an equitable basis for the same price. This means each institution can make its own decision as to how and when to adopt new technology according to the benefits it provides and without additional costs for the gateways from Eduserv.
9. What is Eduserv?
Eduserv is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to realise the benefits of ICT for learning and research. Its income comes from the services it provides which, as well as access and identity management, include e-resource licence negotiation and management (Chest), content management and web solutions. It was born from shared services developed informally across universities in the 1990s. Its clients now not only include universities and colleges, but also the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the Training and Development Agency (TDA), the NHS, BECTA and UCISA. Eduserv is governed by trustees drawn from academia and the technology sector.