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

[Tomasz Wolniewicz <twoln AT umk.pl>]

Hi Nicole,
 I believe we did have a similar discussion about eduGAIN several times 
before, so I will not be saying anything new.

Initially eduGAIN was meant to stay hidden, we even wondered if we need 
a logo, as no end user was supposed to be aware of the eduGAIN brand.
Hoverer eduGAIN seems to be influenced thy the success of eduroam. 
People think that it will do exactly what eduroam does, i.e. provide 
simple access to all federated services throughout the world  with no 
pain. This is why, from time to time we are approached by individual SPs 
asking how they can join eduGAIN and make themselves available to the 
world. I suppose a number of users will also become aware of the name 
and wonder how they can use the service.

So far, my view of eduGAIN and supporting tools is that it is simply a 
service for federation operators. Possibly some tools, like connection 
monitoring and usage could be of interest to individual entity 
operators, but they should be aware of the real purpose of eduGAIN and 
the limitation in support that it could give to them.

What I would be happy to see is that all thise tools popping up in 
various places, could be turned into a uniform toolbox under the eduGAIN 
technical site. Of course I realise that in some cases the tools have a 
wider spectrum and then it does not make sense to push then into that 
toolbox, but others would fit perfectly. I would also welcome any 
opinions on the technical site, what sucks and what you would like to 
see there. We have some plans, like for instance parsing the feed into a 
database thus making it available for fast and convenient browsing and 
filtering, but would be happy to hear of some new ideas.

Tomasz



W dniu 2014-07-02 11:50, Nicole Harris pisze:
> 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.

--
Tomasz Wolniewicz
          twoln AT umk.pl        http://www.home.umk.pl/~twoln

Uczelniane Centrum Informatyczne   Information&Communication Technology Centre
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