Integrating VOMS and PERMIS for Superior Grid Authorization (VP Authz)

Funded by JISC the VOMS-PERMIS Integration for Superior Grid Authorisation (VP-Authz) will look at integrating VOMS and PERMIS technologies for superior Grid Security. The project will be led by the University of Kent in collaboration with NeSC Glasgow and the National Grid Service.

Both VOMS and PERMIS provide authorisation infrastructures for Grids and are currently predominantly used by different groups of Grid users. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and their combination would be a powerful solution as described below. Currently however they are not integrated and the benefits of a combined system cannot be enjoyed. This project proposes to address this directly. Specifically the objectives of this project are to:

• integrate VOMS and PERMIS, more specifically the VOMS attribute assignment function with the PERMIS authorisation decision function;
• ensure they seamlessly inter-work with latest Grid technologies including Globus toolkit version 4 (GT4), the UK Open Middleware Infrastructure Initiative (OMII-UK) and Shibboleth;
• validate the results in several representative major pilot applications run by the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow;
• evaluate the combined software from user, administrator and Grid developer perspectives;
• ensure the results can be integrated with the National Grid Service (NGS) at CCLRC and that they can be rolled out to the wider JISC information environment through integration with Shibboleth technologies;
• distribute the integrated software as open source code as part of Globus Toolkit, OMII, and NMI.

For more information on VP-Authz please contact Dr Richard Sinnott (r.sinnott@nesc.gla.ac.uk)

Page updated on the 21 March 2007
Maintained by Susan McCafferty