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Study on AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) Platforms For Scientific Resources in Europe

Introduction to the AAA Study

In December 2011, a consortium of four partners ed by TERENA  and a number of external experts was awarded a contract by the European Commission to carry out a study into AAA (authentication, authorisation and accounting) platforms and services for scientific resources. The study was concluded in September 2012.

The final version of the AAA Study is now available as pdf.

Background for the AAA Study

Supporting and promoting scientific research and innovation as well enabling access to scientific information are key priorities for the European Commission and for the Member States.

The rapid development and adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has changed the way researchers work, enabling almost instantaneous collaboration regardless of physical location and has provided access to an enormous amount of scientific information that can be processed on powerful computational platforms. This new way of working has generated and generates a huge volume of data, whose exchange and curation pose significant challenges.

To address this point. the High-Level Expert Group on Scientific Data (also known as HLEG on Scientific Data) recommends in its report (Riding the Wave )  the creation of a directive to set up a unified authentication and authorisation system, which they envision would pave the way to distributed and collaborative authentication, authorisation and accounting (AAA) for scientific data. As a result of the recommendations of the HLEG on Scientific Data, the European Commission has tendered to award funding to study the feasibility and impact of adapting the existing, widely used AAA platforms and services to be fully compliant with the requirements posed by the use of data/information resources (such as papers).

A bid  in responce to the calls for tender was submitted in the summer 2011 and awarded to the Consortium in December 2011.

Aim of the AAA Study

The goal of the study was to evaluate the feasibility of delivering an integrated Authentication and Authorisation (and possibly accounting) Infrastructure, AAI, to help the emergence of a robust platform  (Scientific Data Infrastructure) for access to and preservation of scientific information.

The targeted actors in the study are the research and education communities, information service providers (data centres, libraries) and e-Infrastructure/technology providers.

The study was organised in two parts (see picture below):

1. Collection use-cases to derive the AAI requirements;
2. Evaluation of existing AA Infrastructures as well as their gap analisys to identify their strenght and their challanges. The legal aspects of the different AAIs was also assessed.

The output of the study consists of a set of recommendations for the delivery of an integrated AAI to be used for SDI. The recommendations target different stakeholders; the European Commission for the definition of a possible directive; developers to encourage them to use standard technologies to achieve interoperability; Member States for creating the conditions for such an infrastructure at a national level; and policy makers, particularly those involved in the Data Protection Directive, to create awareness of the impact of legislation on cross-boundary access management.

Read more on the Organisation of the Study...

Results of the Study

The table below summarises the list of high-priority recommendations as identified by the team. The involved stakeholders should act timely to address these points.

Milestones and Meetings

The study will be done in period from January 2012 till August 2012 with the following deliverables and timetable.

Contacts

If you have any question please do not hesitate to contact the study coordinator Licia Florio (florio@terena.org) or TERENA (secretariat@terena.org).