GÉANT VOPaaS - Towards a platform for supporting pan-European collaboration

Overview:

Scientific research is at the heart of every European University. Nowadays, such research is no longer an isolated activity, but has evolved into extensive collaboration between networks of researchers in multiple countries. With the capabilities of the internet to connect not only people but also resources, sciences have evolved into e-Science. Virtual Organisations (VOs) have emerged as the organisational form of these networks of people and resources. Broadly defined, Virtual Organisations enable groups of people to share a set of resources. 
Activities aiming to support VOs to use AAI (Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure) facilities in order to share their resources were already initiated during previous GÉANT projects. Providing ready-to-use AAI infrastructure will be the next step in order to enable more VOs to share resources with the R&E end-user community by using eduGAIN [eduGAIN]. In the last quarter of 2014, GÉANT project has started investigating a possibility to provide services to support AAI requirements of Virtual and Collaborative Organisations. The activity is ongoing and currently is in a stage of building the platform for service offering and preparing the business case with the aim to deliver a Virtual Organisation Platform as a Service - VOPaaS offering. 
Eight, both small and large pan-European Collaborative Organisations were interviewed to identify key AAI requirements induced by their user communities. Those requirements were analysed and used as input for designing service offering architecture and a set of potential services. Since different VOs have varying levels of readiness for AAI uptake and therefore different requirements, the VOPaaS proposal is to deliver two levels of service: Basic and Advanced. In this way, VOs that are still in the early stages of AAI adoption can start by using the Basic services and upgrade to Advanced services as their needs and engagement grow. A Market Analysis [VOpaaS MA] was delivered to showcase the result of this phase.
Based on the Market Analysis, the activity continued with addressing the delivery model and deploying the technical infrastructure. Various aspects of the technical delivery model were considered, including dealing with software and platform dependencies. An analysis of existing tools was preformed to identify potential software components. Based on the proposed architecture and selected tools, a pilot platform is being delivered by the end of 2015. The platform services will be piloted with user communities in the beginning of 2016. To addresses the financial sustainability of the platform a cost model for various parts of the platform will also be proposed. 
This paper will present the results of the activity, showcasing findings of the Market Analysis, technical direction and the proposed model for sustaining the platform. In addition, the results of the community pilots will be discussed.

[eduGAIN] http://www.geant.org/Services/Trust_identity_and_security/Pages/eduGAIN....
[VOPaaS MA] http://www.geant.org/Projects/GEANT_Project_GN4-1/deliverables/D9-2_Mark...

Target Audience:

The presentation focuses on users with a technical background, who want to learn about Authentication and Authorization for their collaborative organisations, and how that is supported by the VOPaas platform .

Benefits for Audience:

- learn about AAI for Collaborative organisation
- learn how they can leverage the GEANT VOpaas platform to support their collaborations
- understand the service offering from GEANT VOpaas platform

Topic 2: Services enabling research