Australian Access Federation Newsletter – Issue 3

dotted horizontal rule

The Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing (TPAC) hosts a digital library portal that provides the marine and climate scientific communities with ready access to a large number of heterogeneous and geographically distributed ocean and climate datasets: https://dl.tpac.org.au .

The digital library portal has existed since 2005, and remains under constant development by TPAC and other contributors. It provides a user interface for viewing, searching, and accessing data collections, as well as enabling data services for user access. Files can be downloaded or accessed through OPeNDAP, GridFTP, WCS, Matlab and other interfaces.

Thanks to support from the AAF, the TPAC digital library portal allows data collection owners to securely manage their own datasets. Once logged in, data owners are able to attach attribute information, access rights, and meta-data to the data collection. The AAF capability also allows users to login and access the private data to which they have been granted permissions.

University researchers working with parameter sweeps, optimisation and scientific workflow applications to support their work using the Nimrod Portal can now do so with ‘Shibboleth Single Sign-on’ and short-lived credentials. A version of the web portal with these capabilities has been recently rolled out, as a result of a collaboration opportunity with the Australian Access Federation.

This allows Monash and external users to log on using their home institution’s Identity Provider. Users may also launch jobs using short-lived credentials to the Australian Research Collaboration Service (ARCS) Grid. For registration details please visit: http://www.messagelab.monash.edu.au/Nimrod/WhereToRunNimrod.

AAF Subscribers have access to the cutting edge Federation Registry management tool that assists with managing the needs of Identity and Service Providers. Over the next couple of months, additional features will be available within Federation Registry.

How can your organisation use the Federation Registry to get the maximum benefit from being an AAF subscriber? Management need to understand how the AAF is being utilised within their own organisation to determine how to get the best use of being a subscriber. Of particular interest will be the addition of a ‘Reporting’ tab to access utilisation figures for Identity Providers and Service Providers. Individual reports will be available to determine:

  • The number of sessions that have been established
  • Your peak load times
  • As an Identity Provider, a breakdown of what services your users are connecting to most
  • As a Service Provider, a breakdown of which Identity Providers are connecting to you the most
  • A unique arc-map giving an instant overview of how Identity Providers and Service Providers are interacting with the wider federation.

Follow the AAF’s twitter stream to be the first to know when it’s released.

The AAF has continued to grow with 95% of Australian universities subscribing to the federation as at 31 December 2010. This means a potential user base of over one million users and a good reason to consider what services your institution can connect to the federation. 2010 AAF utilisation overview statistics are now available.

Websites that provide information, products or services that can be accessed by users of the AAF community using their home institution login, include:

  • Data storage infrastructure and tools for researchers
  • Scientific instruments or lab equipment
  • Scholarly or information resources universities subscribe to
  • Online learning environments
  • Academic portfolios
  • Discounted or free software

Is there a service you think would benefit from being connected to the AAF? If so, contact enquiries@aaf.edu.au.

Monash University: Enhanced Access to Nimrod Service
Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing (TPAC): TPAC Portal
University of Technology, Sydney: Labshare (www.labshare.edu.au)
ARCS: Access to SAKAI Service

Publishers:
In addition to RMIT Publishing (Informit), a number of overseas publishers have expressed interest in being part of the federation. In the last few months we welcomed Cambridge University Press, HighWire Press and John Wiley & Sons as AAF subscribers.

A reminder to all AAF Subscribers that the AAF Annual Compliance Statement confirming that organisations are fully compliant to the Federation Rules is due by 30 June 2011. Compliance Statements should be forwarded to: compliance@aaf.edu.au on or before the due date.

The AAF presented two Lightning Rounds on 4 April 2011 at the CCA-EDUCAUSE Australasia conference:

    Innovative Federation Uses: Telescopes, Labs, and Clouds; and
    The Future of Identity Federations: Where Will They Add Value?

Both events were recorded and can be viewed at: http://ccaeducause1.caudit.edu.au/index.php/educause/ccae2011/schedConf/presentations

Date Event Location
June 30 AAF Annual General Meeting
September 12-14 REFEDS meeting and workshop Helsinki, Finland
November 6-10 eResearch Australasia 2011 Melbourne, Victoria