The establishment of a New Zealand Identity and Access Management Federation (NZFed) is a step closer after the recent endorsement of the draft strategy.

NZfed draft strategy signoff

The KAREN research community is making progress towards the establishment of a New Zealand Identity and Access Management Federation (NZFed) after the NZVCC Committee on IT and CRITTERs endorsed the recommendations of the draft strategy at their November meetings.

Two projects have been designed and funded to make progress in this area. The first project led by Matt Cocker, Client Support Service Manager, ITS, University of Auckland, developed the following recommendations which have been endorsed:

• The NZ federation is formed as a legal entity, with the federation rules based on the Australian Access Federation (AAF)
• The AAF operator hosts a NZ Federation on the same operational infrastructure used to host the AAF, and
• New Zealand should adopt Shibboleth Version 2 as the core federation technology

Strategy action plan

The overall strategy will be circulated by mid January with the following action plan:

• Establish a Policy and Governance working group to establish the New Zealand Federation governance and legal structures, and form an Incorporated Society and society rules to operate by. The working group will review the AAF rules for participants and adapt as required to address requirements of the NZ Privacy Act 1993 and handle attribute definitions and any legal issues.
• Investigate the opportunities for funding via AAF mini grants for a joint project between a New Zealand and an Australian institution(s) to develop con-federation between AAF and NZFed.
• The second IAM project, contracted to Landcare Research, will create a NZFed toolkit of best practices and standard installation templates to enable New Zealand institutions to join the federation easily. The project will establish best endeavour Identity Providers in all core KAREN Member institutions by the end of Q4 2010 using one technology for entire sector. Technical assistance will be provided to assist at least four organisations to join by the end of 2010 and deliver federated service for:

• Sakai collaboration platform
• MySCENZGrid geospatial portal
  
• DSpace research publications repository
  

More information

For more information contact julie.watson@morst.govt.nz