*MACE-WebISO Conference Call*
June 11, 2002

*Participants*

Nathan Dors -- Washington(chair)
Shawn Bayern -- Yale
Susan Bramhall -- Yale
Lawrence Greenfield -- CMU
Jeff Eaton -- CMU
Daniel Fisher -- Virginia Tech
Chad La Joie -- Virginia Tech
Bob Morgan -- Washington
Ryan Muldoon -- Wisconsin
Nate Klingenstein -- Internet2(scribe)

*Discussion*

        Nathan encouraged the group to work to continue the theoretical
definition of WebISO systems that it had begun to address earlier.

WebISO Problem Space Definition

        The first thing the group considered is what services a WebISO
system should provide to be a WebISO system.  One clear requirement is the
ability to perform single-sign on, which is a general concept which can
also be performed by many other systems.  The other significant problem in
the space beyond SSO is delegation, which entails questions about tiers and
proxied authentication, problems that often confront portal developers.
The group was wondering whether it would be appropriate to address each
issue individually, or whether the issues should be considered together in
a general set of requirements for a WebISO system.  While there are many
individual components or systems which only need to handle one problem or
the other, the group reasoned that those systems aren't necessarily under
the umbrella of what should be looked at.
        There are several other architectural considerations that the group
named.  Definition of a common WebISO system API or common set of
attributes to be passed from the session server to application servers
would allow for vendors and application designers to rely on a specific
exported scenario.  There is also a potential need to define a back-end API
to allow for different authentication systems to plug-in at that interface.
        Discussion continued about definition of common payloads to be sent
between application servers and client servers.  There are currently a
number of potential standards which may be used in that space, including
SAML.  Bob noted that SAML could be used for this eventually, but there is
no standards definition in place yet to allow for SAML to be used in a
proxiable way.
        Bob is working on a several-page description of a standard, generic
WebISO architecture at this point and is making significant progress.  This
will allow the group to start with a model and begin to flesh out the
individual requirements of the individual pieces that must compose a WebISO
system to start to define a best practice or common practice in the space.


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