An open discussion list for topics related to the eduGAIN interfederation service.

[Nicole Harris <harris AT terena.org>]

On 02/07/2014 11:25, Lukas Hämmerle wrote:
> Sorry for joining this discussion a bit late (mail client did not
> automatically check for new mails for this mail sub folder yet)...
>
>
>> I wonder if this tool is interesting for the eduGAIN community in
>> general, and if it could be provided/supported as part of the eduGAIN
>> service.
> Independent of the discussion about metadata usage rules (I like the
> "Metadata wants to be free" statement ;-) ) and coming back to Mikael's
> initial question:
>
> Personally I am in favor and would support introducing a metadata
> monitoring check tool of the kind like weblicht because it would help
> increasing eduGAIN's overall service quality (as perceived by the end
> user). 
Hmmmm, end-users should NOT be aware of eduGAIN so should never consider
a service quality problem with eduGAIN.  For them, failure to login is
most likely to be associated with their institution or the service, or
possibly for some countries the federation.  Or blaming Shibboleth
because of the firebird of doom. If end users are saying eduGAIN is
broken, we've done something wrong.

I also think it is service creep a bit for eduGAIN, and that seems to be
coming up again and again.  It might be worth having a more general
discussion about the strategic direction for eduGAIN and whether
participants want eduGAIN to remain something that is just about secure
metadata exchange or to add features that increasingly make it look like
it wants to be a confederation. I'm not making any judgements there but
I think that is quite a mindset shift from where we are now and it would
be good to get a feeling as to whether the community wants that
direction change.

Overall I'd be really supportive of a simple monitoring tool that could
be used by federations, but I think the responsibility for running and
using the tool should be at the federation-level.  It is something that
is on the REFEDS to-do list along with other fed-lab type activities,
but at the moment we don't really have the resources for that.