CAMP Enterprise Authentication Workshop 2004 

Authentication is the process of verifying a person's identity in the electronic world. Enterprise authentication services, a backbone service of information security architecture, support this function for multiple applications at the enterprise level.

The standard solution for reconciling such a centrally managed, common infrastructure and the higher education culture of shared governance is to establish policy that guides the service’s requirements and use. Typically, good stewardship requires a balance among cost, service, and security.

The CAMP Enterprise Authentication Workshop will offer an overall understanding of the role and implementation considerations of enterprise authentication within this broader campus context. Furthermore, it will provide participants with a survey of authentication services, from campus technical considerations and requirements to emerging requirements to participate in federations, and will cover the sticky issues involved in changing an existing service or implementing a new one.

The program will include both beginning and more advanced technical tracks, as well as a new management track. Topics include:

• strategies for assessing risk when adding new applications to an existing infrastructure
• security implications and considerations of credential distribution processes
• Web initial sign-on (WebISO) system comparisons
• Shibboleth architecture and software overview

This workshop will offer education and guidance to higher education CIOs and IT managers, project managers, middleware architects, and administrative staff involved at a technical, management, or stakeholder level in supporting an enterprise authentication service. The sessions are focused on campuses just beginning their infrastructure and those further along in their deployments seeking to leverage their authentication services to support Web-based applications.

Participants are encouraged to have a sound knowledge of Identity Management (IdM) to learn the most from the sessions. Those interested in knowing more about IdM can attend the CAMP Identity Management Workshop earlier in the week or review the Enterprise Directory Implementation Roadmap, which covers the topic in detail.

A note to previous CAMP Enterprise Authentication Workshop attendees: If you attended the authentication workshop in June 2003 and have outstanding questions concerning your authentication service, consider attending this meeting. This meeting is shorter, which saves hotel costs, and offers more targeted information with the use of tracks.

CAMP is sponsored by the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative-Enterprise and Desktop Integration Technologies (NMI-EDIT) Consortium: EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and SURA. Additional support was provided by the National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement NSF-02-028, ANI-012937.

For more information on NMI-EDIT, please see the Web site.