*Attendees*
Egon Verharen, SURFnet (chair)
Tyler Johnson, U. North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Jill Gemmill, U. Alabama - Birmingham
Ann West, Internet2/Educause
Art Vandenberg, Georgia State
Nadim El-Khoury, U. North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Ken Klingenstein - Internet2
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Jeanette Fielden, Internet2

*Discussion*

Jill announce the successful award of an NSF Middleware Initiative grant for the project "ViDe.Net: Middleware for Scalable Video Services for Research and Higher Education", a collaboration involving herself (UAB), Samir Chatterjee (CGU), Tyler Johnson (UNC), Egon Verharen (SURFnet), and RADVISION. The project will last two years and will produce a videoconferencing application directory (based on CommObject) and management for test bed activities/results propagation. They will also be communicating with an Access Grid proposal that was also funded. Additional information is at: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0222710

*Subgroup Update*

Authn/z was on a two-week hiatus and resumes meeting 18 June 2002. Authn/z has reached consensus to adopt a web services approach for a proof of concept to demonstrate registration and authentication incorporating a point and click visual method. Shibboleth code is being provided to for access to its authentication infrastructure.

Egon provided an update on discussions in Ireland at the TERENA meeting. The native inclusion of Authn/z in VC protocols is still an open question. A simulation utilizing the web services approach for the server side should be released in December or January. For the client side a test client might be available then as well though it could be a later release date. There was discussion of how resource discovery could be included as well. A web page will be set up to register video directory servers for searching. Issues include collection/registration and verification of resources. There will be a table of the various enterprise directories and gatekeepers that are distributed.
[AI] 17 June 2002 (Tyler and Ann) Co-ordinate a workgroup to create an architectural diagram that combines Authn/z, and resource discovery in the framework.
Tyler indicated that one of the next steps is to create distributed searches of distributed commObject directories. Participation in coding to build advanced search capabilities for resource discovery is welcome. In the next three months there is a need to develop the h323Zone object class. The searches can’t occur until this work is completed. He also indicated that authentication should be implemented at the local level. Another aspect under consideration is how to implement self-registration.

Tyler raised the issue that it needs to be decided if Videoconferencing Authn/z will be a standard submitted to the ITU or if it will be a strictly R&D effort. He also indicated that it might worthwhile to explore keeping Annex D/E intact. Ken talked about the need to resolve two issues, first do the existing protocols accommodate federated administration, and secondly can they accommodate payloads that are SAML based?

Radvision is potentially going to produce an H.323 client endpoint that will adhere to the authentication mechanism the group produces. Roughly 90% of the endpoints in existence use the Radvision stack. Radvision also provides sample endpoint code, which is heavily used by vendors. This represents an opportunity to have a large impact on what’s implemented. There is also the issue of whether to authenticate the end points or the users and how this should be implemented.

User activation and registration have been defined with commObject. The notion of whole campuses registering has been looked at. There is a desire to include the dynamic registration process for entire networks in the H.323 definition that study group 16 will examine at their October meeting.

Overall this offers an opportunity to pull together all these disparate pieces in a way that demonstrate the concepts even if they are not in the final version.

[AI] 17-June-02 (Tyler) Coordinate a discussion between Bob Morgan, Ken Klingenstein, and a representative of the H.235 WG with respect to the requirements for Authn payloads in the H.235 protocol.

It was suggested that it might be better not to aggressively add commObject test bed participants since the standard will change as it moves through the standards process and rather to focus on growing the implementation base once the standard is ratified and set. Since the object class is publicly available anyone can install it. There will be a small number of sites that implement their own local commObject directory that. Other, smaller sites can register in a centralized commObject directory. This protects participants against experimental schema unless they want to be directly involved. The desire is to include a broad representation from Europe to ensure thorough testing.

[AI] (Jill) Will create a new list for participants who implement commObject.

Jill reported that a planned meeting with PolyCom has not yet been set.

*Action Items*
1. [AI] 17 June 2002 (Tyler and Ann) Co-ordinate a workgroup to create an architectural diagram that combines Authn/z, and resource discovery in the framework.
2. [AI] 17-June-02 (Tyler) Will coordinate a discussion between Bob Morgan, Ken Klingenstein, and a representative of the H.235 WG with respect to the requirements for Authn payloads in the H.235 protocol.
3. [AI] 17 June 2002 (Jill) Will create a new mailing list for participants who implement CommObject.