Earth scientist communities invited the AARC project training team to provide insights on key aspects of federated access and on what is required for them to deploy it. A half-day AARC training event was held at the EPOS (European Plate Observing System) Workshop in Lisbon on 12-14 March 2018.

Research communities sometimes need face-to-face training, in order to better understand what authentication and authorisation infrastructure (AAI) solutions are available for them. The EPOS event gathered Earth sciences communities together and was a good occasion to provide information and training on authentication and authorisation processes and on the results of the AARC project.

Around 30 participants attended the AARC training, where they learned about the AARC blueprint architecture and relevant policy frameworks needed for them to deploy an AAI. This training event is paving the way for an EPOS pilot that is planned in the AARC project. It proved the importance of reaching out to research communities in order to understand their needs and discuss available solutions and how AARC can support their deployment of an AARC-compliant architecture.

Feedback for the future

Participant feedback was very positive: some enjoyed the background information provided, while others used the experience to decide to re-assess their services from the AAI perspective. Among the more technical topics, accounting was very popular; there was significant interest in OpenID Connect and OAuth2, although a more in-depth discussion on these topics is needed as this was not really in scope for this training event. Finally, the sharing of research collaboration use-cases is always appreciated, and the AARC team will work with the research collaborations participating in the project to ensure more information is shared between them.

The feedback received is very valuable and will be taken into consideration for future AARC training events. The AARC training team is stepping up its activities; two additional training events are planned:

• 23-24 April, Munich, DE – Training on AARC for Life Sciences research communities (closed group)
• AARC Policy Starter webinar for research communities operating a Service-Provider-proxy through which researchers access relevant services. Watch out for more information.

The AARC training team is open to more requests. Do get in touch if you would like to engage with them!

Further information

Here you can find the training material shared during the EPOS training

EPOS Implementation and Validation Workshop in Lisbon, (Portugal),12-14 March 2018