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Introduction

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 recommendation 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).

In December 2011 the call for tender was awarded to the Consortium composed of the following four partners:

• TERENA (Trans European Research and Education Networking Association), the leading partner;
• LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries);
• UvA (Universiteit van Amsterdam hereafter called UvA);
• DEENK (University and National Library of Debrecen)

The consortium will work together with the following experts:

• Diego Lopez (Telefonica I+D)
• Klaas Wierenga (Cisco Systems)
• Torbjörn Wiberg (Umeå University)
• Nicole Harris (JISC Advance)

This study will run from Dec 2011 until August 2012.

Aim of the Study

The goal of this study is to provide recommendations for the development and deployment of a Scientific Data e-Infrastructure (SDI) that would enable access to heterogonous data for researchers and citizens alike. The SDI should be delivered integrating as much as possible existing AAA platforms (such as those used by the research and education community, or those used by the eScience community).

The study will therefore will identify use-cases for the SDI; it will assess existing AAA-infrastructures 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.

Study on AAA Platforms For Scientific Resources in Europe

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In December 2011, a consortium of four partners 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, led by TERENA, was concluded in September 2012.   

The AAA Study Final Report is now available as pdf.

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(SDI)) for access to and preservation of scientific informationThe results of the study in the forms of technical and policy recommendations will be used in developing a strategy, in particular, for Scientific Data Infrastructures in Europe that will support science by providing access to quality services for researchers, funding agencies and for the public at large.

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

General Study Organization

The goal of the study will be achieved by meeting three different objectives:

Objective I – Identify use-cases and their requirements concerning AAA

During this phase of the study, use-cases will be identified via interviews with different user-groups; particularly LIBER and DEENK will collect the requirements from the library, the archive and the humanity communities on data access, data management and governance, data curation and long-term preservation as well as on AAA; TERENA and UvA will collect to requirements from the e-Science and to the networking communities.

The results of these interviews will be used to assess how the existing initiatives can meet the resulting requirements. The rationale for the SDI and its added value to access, store and preserve heterogeneous data will also be highlighted.

Objective II – Analyse existing and emerging infrastructures to address identified use-cases.

A strengths and weaknesses study (SWOT Analysis) of the existing infrastructures will be carry out; during this phase the support for the identified use-cases will also be assessed. Data protection, access issues and trust models will also be considered.

This part of the study will be driven mostly by TERENA, UvA and the experts.

This part of the study will also describe scenarios that would benefit from an integrated AAA and evaluate options to deliver an integrated and manageable AAA/AAI for the SDI (or e-Infrastructure).

The outcome of this part of the study will be:

• A complete overview of the AAA landscape in Europe (with references to US and/or other regions) and the main current trends;
• A description of the inter-operability features of the AAA systems surveyed in light of their suitability as elements of integrated infrastructures.
• An evaluation of the user-friendliness of the considered AAA infrastructures.

Objective III – Recommendations to deliver the SDI

In the third part of the study options to deliver an integrated and manageable AAI for SDI (Objective 3) will be proposed.

The outcome of this study will be:

• 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)

• Provide recommendations on how European regulations could support such an integrated SDI;
• Provide technical recommendations for developers to favour specific technologies to ensure future inter-operability;
• Address the (organizational, legal and technical) challenges to provide pan-Europe AAA/AAI for SDI/e-Infrastructure.

The role of new technologies and standards under development in relevant bodies such as IETF, OGF, OASIS, ISO/ITU-T, IEEE as well as industry technologies (social network and others)  and how these will impact of facilitate the provisioning of the SDI will be discussed.

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The study was organised in two parts (see picture on the righhand side):  

1. Collection use-cases to derive the AAI requirements;
2. Evaluation of existing AAI as well as their gap analisys to identify their strengths and their challenges. 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 highlight the following priorities:

• The general assumption confirmed by this study is that an AAI for SDI should be built on standard technologies, using mechanisms to translate between various authentication and authorisation technologies, and that federated access plays an important role;
• To fully benefit from federated access, more funding is needed to improve the reach of national identity federations in research an education;
• Further research is needed to enhance authorisation and accounting mechanisms;
• A common policy and trust framework for identity management is needed, as well as clarity on data protection laws – these should be coordinated at European level;
• Relevant organisations such as eIRG, REFEDS (Research and Education Federations), IGTF, the EC and consortia of libraries and data centres should all work towards these goals.

Read more on the Organisation of the Study...

Results of the Study

The tables below summarises the list of high-priority recommendations as identified by the team.

The recommendations target different stakeholders:

• The EC 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;
  
• Policy makers, particularly those involved in the Data Protection Directive, to create awareness of the impact of legislation on cross-boundary access management.

The involved stakeholders should act timely to address these points.

Milestones and Meetings

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

More information about the PAAART

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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).

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