By Terry Smith

IAM Working Group Chair 

What is an identity federation? It is the technology and policy frameworks that allow a user to login to a service using the credentials provided by their university or research institution in a privacy preserving way. It enables Single Sign-on to services, connects users to services that are beyond the borders of the organisation. It enhances collaboration, reduces effort required by services providers to manage identities, and when working well is invisible to users. Two identity federations are delivered by NRENs across the region. Eduroam, for seamlessly accessing wireless infrastructure globally, and Identity Federation for access to web-based services. This is extended into eduGAIN, the global federation of federations that allows a user in one nation to access a web service provide in another nation.

The APAN Identity and Access Management Working group have been actively developing and training technical staff across the region in the deployment and on-going operation of federated identity solutions to support researchers, academics and students. The working group has coordinated run the following training events, BACKFIRE, iFIRE and iFIRExMAN that brought participants from NRENs together with identity federation experts. This resulted in the creations of new national identity federations that continue to grow, develop and share as a community of identity experts across the region.

APAN meetings provide an ongoing opportunity to meet and share experiences, technologies and understanding with NRENs providing updates on their identity federations achievements and advancements. International speakers deliver information on the latest technologies and global policy framework and hands on training is regularly delivered.

Delivery of federated identity services is a complex undertaking. The Malaysian federation team, SIFULAN have developed a scalable federation containerized cloud stack that significantly streamlines the delivery of federation services. This innovative approach has been made available to other NRENs though the iFIRExMAN training and directly by SIFULAN.

Federations in the Asia / Pacific Region