Connecting Australian researchers globally via the Australian Access Federation.

eduGAIN is a metadata aggregation service run by GÉANT for the global higher education community. It is essentially a federation "peering" service, which routinely imports metadata from multiple participating Higher Education and Research Federations, aggregates the metadata into a single signed document, and serves the aggregate metadata back to federations who then redistribute it to their subscribing Identity Providers (IdPs) and Service Providers (SPs).

Details

What does it means to be an IdP in eduGAIN

Adding an Identity Provider (IdP) to eduGAIN, via the AAF, increases the number of global services and resources available to an organisation’s researchers, scholars and students. If an SP supports research and scholarship activities, it should assert the Research and Scholarly (R&S) entity category, which states the service’s attribute requirements to Identity Providers (IdPs). The Service Provider retains control of the access authorisation decisions, managing access according to defined policies. Identity Providers should release the necessary attributes in the R&S attribute bundle to those services who assert R&S.

Connecting an identity provider to eduGAIN

This following outlines the steps to connect an identity provider to eduGAIN via the AAF.

Assess whether the IdP’s organisation is compliant or can comply with the SIRTFI (Security Incident Trust Framework for Federated Identity) guidelines for coordinating security incident responses in identity federations.
Ensure the IdP software is the latest stable version and is regularly maintained.
Ensure the IdP can resolve all of the attributes that encompass the R&S attribute bundle.
Configure the IdP to release all of the attributes in the R&S attribute bundle to all services that assert R&S.
Consume the AAF eduGAIN Metadata.
Request to join and add the IdP service to eduGAIN, by emailing support@aaf.edu.au.
Test and go-live.

After joining

After successfully joining eduGAIN, advertise the service to a wider audience, potential avenues include:

notification on the IdP login page,
email campaigns and newsletters to the organisation’s research community.

The key message for researchers should focus on extending connectivity and collaborative opportunities by providing access to global services and resources.