Introduction
Study on AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) platforms and services for scientific data/information resources in Europe
Grant No ???? ()
The Consortium composed of the following four partners:
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has been awarded by the European Commission the grant to do a study on “AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) platforms and services for scientific data/information resources”.
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Aim of the Study
Supporting and promoting scientific research and innovation as well as opening up access to scientific information are key priorities for the European Commission and for the Member States.
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The study will assess existing AAA-infrastructures; it will identify use-cases for the SDI as well as the ability for the existing AAA-infrastructures to address these use-cases. The study will also examine the gaps in providing the necessary infrastructure to support the use-cases and explore the work that is being done in the existing AAA-infrastructures to address those needs.
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General Study Organization
The study will be organized in two parts/stages:
Part I The first part - Assessment of the study will consist of an assessment of the state-of-the art of the current Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructures (AAI) for e-Infrastructure Science (Objective 1) and related access control technologies.
This part will also cover the rationale (mostly in light the context of the added value for science and society) for building an AAI and will compare scalability, governance (and stakeholders), policies and the widely used technologies; an evaluation of how existing AAI deployed for research and education (in Europe and beyond) could also be used to support other sectors will be provided as well.
During this phase of the study, use-cases will be identified via interviews with different user-groups, such as R&E communities, Information Services providers (data centres, libraries), e-Science users and so on.
The outcome of this part of the study will result in:(i)
- A complete overview of the AAA landscape in Europe (with references to US and/or other regions) and the main current trends;
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- A description of the inter-operability features of the AAA systems surveyed in light of their suitability as elements of integrated infrastructures.
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- An evaluation of the user-friendliness of the considered AAA infrastructures
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Part II In the second part of the study existing - Existing and emerging infrastructures will be analyzed in relation analysis to address use-cases identified in section Part 1.
A strengths and weaknesses study (SWOT Analysis) of the existing infrastructure to support the identified use-cases will be carried out (Objective 2).
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The results of the SWOT analysis will also be used to address data protection, access issues, trust issues, and access policies at pan-European level.
The outcome of this part of the study will:(i)
- Describe the rationale for the integrated SDI and its added value to access, store and preserve heterogeneous data;
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- Provide recommendations for adapting the existing, widely used platforms and services to be fully compliant with the requirements posed by the use of data/information resources (papers, catalogues, raw data, images, etc).
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- Provide recommendations on how the European regulations could support such an integrated SDI;
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- Provide technical recommendations for developers to favour specific technologies to ensure future inter-operability;
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- Address the (organizational, legal and technical) challenges to provide pan-Europe AAA/AAI for SDI/e-Infrastructure.
Particular importance will be given to the following objectives and factors:
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