Cloud IdP NREN Survey

With the ever-expanding range of services accessed by users it is becoming increasingly important for R&E institutions to offer managed single-sign-on (SSO) services.  Being able to manage accounts in this way can dramatically reduce costs for the organisation in areas such as user management/password recovery, user creation and they can reduce the licencing costs for software and services as individuals no-longer part of the organisation can have their access revoked and licences re-allocated in a centralised and coordinated manner.

Having an IdP service also allows users to access services accessible via Federated Identity providers such as eduGAIN.  This provides institutions with further cost savings as access to these services can be more easily arranged and managed and access can be controlled and coordinated across the organisation rather than on an individual by individual basis.

However operating an IdP service for a small to medium sized organisation can be relatively complex – even though for these organisations the benefits are just as great if not greater.  The technical skills and resources to develop, manage and secure the IdP infrastructure can be hard to find within a small IT team.

Questionnaire for Identity Federations / NRENs

GÉANT is considering developing a cloud based IdP service for organisations wishing to take advantage of the benefits of an IdP but without having to invest time and resources in developing an in-house solution.  In order to understand the potential demand for such a service and the technical requirements of the service GÉANT would like to canvas your views on a Cloud based IdP facilities