Blog Posts
From the TIER Community Investor Council
2016 Year in Review
Read this post to find out about all that's accomplished this year thanks to the efforts of the entire TIER community.
InCommon in the TIER DevOps Environment
Read Nick Roy's blog post to learn about the work that Internet2 and partner staff are doing to enhance the InCommon Federation’s technical capabilities and operational practices in the DevOps area.
TIER Production Candidate Coming December 19th
Learn more about the TIER production candidate package now under final testing and to be released by December 19.
TIER Community Contributor Spotlight
Rob Carter, Duke University
(Left) Rob Carter
Rob Carter, Identity Management Architect at Duke University, has been an active contributor to Internet2 trust and identity efforts over a number of years. Most recently Rob has been a key contributor to TIER. Read the blog post to learn about Rob and his perspective.
Working Group Updates
TIER Security and Audit
The Security and Audit Working Group, led by Helen Patton (The Ohio State University) has been refining their 2017 work priorities. The group has begun a review of existing security assessments of TIER components. Other members of the working group have been tasked with identifying additional assessments to include in the group’s work.
TIER Data Structures and APIs
The TIER Data Structures and APIs working group, led by Keith Hazelton (University of Wisconsin-Madison) has developed a draft charter for a TIER Provisioning and De-Provisioning working group, which will guide and inform the automation of those two critical functions for future releases of TIER. Members of the group have also been hard at work on a deployment guide for Grouper, with a complete first draft being reviewed. In preparation for 2017 the group has mapped out work priorities and identified key milestones for the coming year.
TIER Entity Registry
The TIER Entity Registry Working group, led by Warren Curry (University of Florida), has completed an initial draft of the Identity Management Product Feature Details, an extensive review of TIER requirements and how those needs map to the features of available open source and commercial IdM applications. This analysis will guide development efforts and identify good candidates for inclusion into upcoming TIER functionality. The Entity Registry has also developed an annual work plan for the upcoming year.
TIER Packaging
The TIER Packaging Working Group, led by Jim Jokl (University of Virginia), has been working hard on the final testing of the TIER production candidate for a community release in December. The group has also continued its work on campus metadata and configuration management tools. The group has defined functional requirements for the campus metadata management tool and is in the earlier stages of discussion regarding Shibboleth IdP configuration management and requirements for evaluating potential candidate platforms. CANARIE’s IdP installer has also been reviewed and is being considered as the basis for automation in future releases.
TIER Component Architects
The TIER Component Architects Group, led by Steve Zoppi (Internet2), focuses on alignment of TIER processes, including the common core of technology platforms and tools. Recent calls have focused on approaches to translation issues, instrumentation direction, incentives to adoption, the DevOps workbench construction criteria, coordination for the upcoming TIER release and review of a draft charter for a TIER Provisioning and De-Provisioning Working Group.
Key Internet2 identity initiatives are supported in part by National Science Foundation grants. For more information, see specific software sites.
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