UABgrid Identity Infrastructure John-Paul Robinson, David Shealy, UAB, IT Infrastructure Services Educause Southeast Regional Conference June 3, 2008
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June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference3 Overview Understanding Collaboration Identity Services and the Grid UABgrid IdM Solution System Walk Through Next Steps Conclusions
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference4 The Challenge of Collaboration Research Group Google University IT Collaborator Compute Center
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference5 Common Steps to Collaboration Mailing list -- where ever its easiest Wiki – easy on your local server Add blogs, shared bookmarks, and other social networking tools Find compute resources to crunch the numbers Enjoy the autonomy and control of self directed collaboration and a low infrastructure burden
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference6 Challenges to Collaboration Deal with the hassle of maintaining accounts and permissions across tools? Accept the limitations of a single function applications? Choose an applications that does many things poorly? Use someone's portal but loose authority over your portlet needs? Who do you call when you need help? Who do you trust?
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference7 UABgrid Technology Backdrop UAB adopted Campus IdM in mid-1990's & joined Internet2 in late 1990's NMI-Testbed Participation and EPSCoR funding ( ) Began construction of campus grid with Computer & Information Sciences (CIS) and Engineering (ENG), UABgrid Ongoing collaboration on regional grid, SURAgrid NSF project to integrate NMI middleware tools and open source web applications ( ) Acquire dark fiber leases for connection to national fiber networks Launch UABgrid Pilot September 2007
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Traditional IT Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking Applications exclusively managed by IT Infrastructure services exclusively serve IT application needs Network exists to extend access to application
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Extend Networking from Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Supported Networking Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking Research Applications End-User Applications
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Infrastructure Next in Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Extend Infrastructure Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference Supported Infrastructure Stack IT Business and Administrative Applications Infrastructure Services Networking Research Applications End-User Applications
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference14 National Cyberinfrastructure A Continuum of Identity lower assurance – facilitates collaboration higher assurance – facilitates trust Authorization Policies Informed by Identity Attributes Pools of Execution Resources A Common Data Framework Reliability and Performance Monitoring Maximized Network Bandwidth
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference15 National Cyberinfrastructure Grid: Interconnected Infrastructure Visualizing a Grid Site Resources Site Resources Linked via Shared Cyberinfrastructure
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference16 Cyberinfrastructure IdM Exec Data Net Info UABgrid Application 1 Application 4 Application 3 Application 2 Common Grid Interfaces
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference17 Cyberinfrastructure IdM Exec Data Net Info UABgrid Application 1 ResearchUser AdminEducation Grid Infrastructure Supports Multiple Application Domains
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference18 Cyberinfrastructure IdM Exec Data Net Info UABgrid Research Applications UsersStats FilesProcesses GroupsComm UABgrid is Building Services for Research Collaborations
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference19 Cyberinfrastructure IdM Exec Data Net Info UABgrid Research Application Services UsersStats FilesProcesses GroupsComm Statistical Genetics “R” caBIG Collaboration Tools Future Initiatives UABgrid is a Research Collaboration Platform
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference20 Interconnects and coordinates resources across administrative domains Uses standard, open, and general purpose interfaces and protocols Allows resource combination to deliver high quality services built on the core utility Understanding the Grid The “grid” is the Fabric of Inter-connected Resources
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference21 Supporting Collaboration Provide infrastructure that is flexible Offer self-managed services Provide portable identities Support integration across domains Respect autonomy Empower the researcher Contribute components to infrastructure IT strength in middleware services HPC Centers strength in computational services
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference22 Philosophy of Identity Identity is a natural continuum Different applications can enlist different technologies (Shibboleth, Certificates, OpenID, etc.) Different technologies support different levels of trust Systems need consistent identity Identity is pervasive Identity is a leading integration point
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference23 Solving the Attribute Puzzle
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference UABgrid Identity Solution Identity & Attribute Management Web Application Attribute Store Head Node Identity & Attribute Release Web Applications Clusters UABgrid IdM Attributes to Web Apps with Shibboleth Attributes to Non-web Apps with GridShib User Accesses Services Directly User Identity from Institution IdM (via InCommon not legacy feeds)
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference25 Pilot Collaboration Applications Mailing Lists: Sympa Wiki's: MediaWiki and Confluence Project management: Trac + Subversion Blogs: Wordpress User certificate management: PHPki Grid meta-scheduling: GridWay Grid facing computational resources: Globus
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference26 Confluence Login Walk-Through Confluence is a commercial wiki product from Atlassian Atlassian Demo for UABgrid Collaboration Environment Confluence Highlights proprietary software integration wiki for collaborations that require distinct access and content management roles for members Login Highlights System Boundaries
Confluence Wiki Login Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Select Session Identity Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Select UAB Identity Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
UAB Authentication Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
UAB Attributes to UABgrid Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Collaboration Attributes to Wiki Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
User Logged In at Wiki Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: UAB InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Select ProtectNetwork Identity Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: PN InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
ProtectNetwork Authentication Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: PN InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
ProtectNetwork Attributes Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: PN InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Different User Logged In at Wiki Confluence :: UABgrid Login :: PN InCommon (authn + shib) :: UABgrid (collab attributes) :: Confluence
Globus Identity Use Example
Ultimate Goal: Any Application in Collaboration UABgrid IdM
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference40 Current State Basic group management and collaboration tools in place Building infrastructure to support expansion of resources and users Attribute exchange with web applications is working, Globus attribute consumption needed Good cross-section of users and projects for pilot
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference41 Attribute Service Development Pre-configured VM image Combines multiple services and avoids duplicating integration effort Shibboleth, GridShib, and VO/group management (Sympa) Grew out of the NSF project as encapsulation of the system concepts myVocs box is shared infrastructure component to simplify development and maintenance of UABgrid infrastructure
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference42 UABgrid User Communities UABgrid Development Team SSG Biostatistics “R” Workflow to Grid Migration ASA + UAB Grid Resource Exploration SURAgrid Accounting Working Group CIS Collaborative Computing Lab Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference43 UABgrid Identity Services Next Steps Improved Attribute & Group Management Grouper supports generic group management, Signet an option for permissions. Improved Login Identity provider selections, roaming preferences OpenID Support Asserting is easy. Consuming not so hard but will require updates to registration service Shibboleth 2.0 and GridShib 0.6 Support Regular Release Cycle for myVocs box
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference44 Engaged in Broader Community caBIG – GAARDS authn/z infrastructure SWITCH D-Grid TeraGrid UABgrid
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference45 Conclusions Collaborators need to be able to operate autonomously on a reliable infrastructure Centralized IT services can contribute significantly to collaborations by exposing rich, user-controlled resource interfaces Shibboleth-based identity services allow users to define and manage their trust boundaries in a distributed environment Grid is an effective model for infrastructure development
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference46 Acknowledgments Office of the Vice President for Information Technology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) UABgrid Collaborative Development Initiative with Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) and Mechanical Engineering (ENG) at UAB "NMI Enabled Open Source Collaboration Tools for Virtual Organizations" NFSANI ANI
June 3, 2008Educause Southeast Regional Conference47 References Shibboleth Demo GridShib InCommon