IAM

The Identity and Access Management Group is off to an excellent start. Their web site is self explanatory for the most part, but I wanted to reiterate a few things here.

At Penn State, we've had a long and successful history of being on a variety of edges in the IAM world. For example, staying close to the large and dynamic group of middleware experts in the Internet2 world have helped to keep us in an interesting place and a very helpful place for Penn State.

Over the last year, it became clear that we need to take some time to level set and recalibrate what our IAM roadmap should be at Penn State - and that's a big piece of what this group is doing. For me, however, the undisputed most important part of this group's activities is creating a sustainable, vibrant community of people who understand each others' needs and can better anticipate each other's needs in the future. The early indications are that this is indeed happening and - while difficult to explain how important this is at a backyard picnic with neighbors - is very, very exciting.

Renee Shuey (ITS) and Joel Weidner (HFS) are co-chairing the group and I'm sure would be happy to entertain any questions that might come up about the project. If you take a moment to check out their web site and have any thoughts to share, please do.