February 1, 2002

Internet2 Middleware Initiative and MACE

RL "Bob" Morgan, University of Washington

Topics

Internet2 Middleware Initiative

Architecture and Infrastructure

MACE

Middleware activities

Calling All Architects

Internet2 Middleware Initiative

April 1999: time to move up the interop stack, start "middleware" program

"I was told not to volunteer for anything"

(but we did anyway)

I2-initiated, campus-driven

"Institutional infrastructure architecture" ... OK, let's call it "middleware"

Architecture + Infrastructure

Architecture: software modularity on a large scale: interfaces, reuse

Infrastructure: software architecture implemented as institutional services

Supporting transparent interconnection of resources (when authorized, and no connection when not)

Middleware Dichotomies

Infrastructure: concrete, service-oriented

Architecture: abstract, design-oriented

Directory: Finding stuff

Security: Keeping stuff hidden

Integration: App-specific functions (aka "appness")

Consistency: Making all apps the same

Diversity and Interconnection

Diversity thrives in isolation How many ways to manage accounts? Embedded systems administrators Stamping out diversity not the answer

Inter-campus interop based on intra-campus standards, mapping

Infrastructure as common as possible, but no commoner

MACE

Steering committee for mware activities

Initiate, review, track mware projects

Evangelize "architecture" issues

Establish "shared state" on complex topics

Create liaisons with European peers, "Grid" workers, Educause, etc

"MACE Aint Covering Everything"

MACE Members

Ken Klingenstein (Internet2, director) Scott Cantor (Ohio State), Steven Carmody (Brown),

Michael Gettes (Georgetown), Paul Hill (MIT), Jim Jokl (Virginia), RL "Bob" Morgan (Washington, chair), Mark Poepping (CMU), Bruce Vincent (Stanford), David Wasley (UCOP)

European liaisons: Brian Gilmore (Edinburgh), Ton Verschuren (SURFnet)

Grid liaison: Von Welch (Argonne/NCSA) Educause liaison: Steve Worona

I2-MI Process

Standardization, best practice, integration

IETF-inspired: open, solution-oriented, energy-driven, self-organizing

Technical working groups with lists, phone calls, home pages, documentsI2 supplies flywheel, scribing support

Capture that thought!

Directory activities

Directory service: the institutional PDA

EduPerson schema: basic standards

HE Dir of Dirs: basic inter-campus interop, scaling, policy

Directory challenges: privacy, data ownership, app integration, semantics, multi-directory linkage, objects other than people, groups, ...

Security Activities

Focus: Authentication + Authorization

HE PKI: establishing basic interop, basic policy agreements, right "weight", working with US FPKI

Shibboleth: Inter-organizational web authentication and authorization

WebISO: Intra-campus web sign-on

Integration Activities

Video middleware: directory and A&A support for conferencing and streaming conferencing/presence attributes, endpoint

authentication, datastream protection, ITU standards, ...

MaceMed: middleware support for academic medical centers MeduPerson

NSF Middleware Initiative and Grid(s)

Outreach

Middleware courseware (I2M-CP?)

I2 "IT architect" email listsfor announcements and discussion

CAMP

TERENA "networks for collaboration"Limerick, Ireland, June 2002 (www.terena.nl)

Futures

More Inter-campus infra experiments

Authorization services

Web services, XML

Content control (aka Digital Rights Mgt)

Where do you want to take us?