From: Chet Burgess <Chet.Burgess@UCOP.EDU>
To: UCIDMGMT-L@LISTSERV.UCOP.EDU <UCIDMGMT-L@LISTSERV.UCOP.EDU>
Subject: Software Distribution and Shibboleth Authentication
Date: 03/22/2010 02:34:18 PM
All,
One item into which the Technical Acquisition Support (TAS) Group is looking is the electronic purchase and distribution of software for student and employee work at home use of software available through UC Agreements with vendors. A specific example would be the fulfillment of Work At Home rights available to employees of departments participating in the UC system-wide Microsoft Consolidated Campus Agreement (MCCA) via e-Academy. In this case, the service provider that is acting as the middleman (e-Academy) has the capability to authenticate via shibboleth.
Since some of this distribution is based upon participation by various departments, the department code would need to be an attribute that is released by the IdP. That attribute is currently not one of the attributes defined for release within UC Trust. Another attribute to be provided is the affiliation of the individual (student, staff, faculty, etc.), as different groups have different product and pricing in place. This attribute is currently one of the attributes defined for release with UC Trust, but it is not clear the degree to which locations are able to provide the accurate values of the attribute.
The first two campuses that are discussing this are UCLA and Irvine. Other locations are expected to follow. Separately, there would be a background feed to SHI specifying the participating departments for each location, which is used to determine the authorization of each individual who has been authenticated via shibboleth.
You can expect that your local representative will approach you as they enter into this model for purchase and distribution. I suggest that we include this topic at our next conference call.
Regards,
Chet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chet Burgess
Manager, Data Warehouse and Corporate Systems (DWCS)
Information Resources & Communications (IR&C)
University of California Office of the President (UCOP)
415-20th Street, Oakland, CA 94612-2901
office: (510) 987-0361
fax: (510) 763-5597
cell: (510) 604-2347
email: Chet.Burgess@ucop.edu
"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on." -- Richard Feynman