Internet2: Extending Identity and Access Around the Globe with InCommon
A Q&A with Ann West and Kevin Morooney
During its 25th anniversary year we've been looking back at the evolution of Internet2, highlighting its technological advancements and the vibrant community at its heart. Today, we're talking with two Internet2 executives about InCommon, a key component of Internet2, both in its organizational functions and as technological infrastructure.
"After the determination was made to build this great network, one of the immediate and most important challenges was to work on ways to make services available, at scale, in a secure and privacy-preserving way." —Ann West
Mary Grush: When did InCommon come about in the 25-year timeline of Internet2, and how did it emerge from the initial work of Internet2?
Ann West: Internet2 was founded in 1996, and after the determination was made to build this great network, one of the immediate and most important challenges was to work on ways to make services available, at scale, in a secure and privacy-preserving way.
In the early days, much of this foundational work came out of two efforts: the Internet2 Middleware Initiative, which first convened in 1998; and the Common Solutions Group, which represents about 30 organizations — mostly larger research institutions — that were looking further into the best ways to support collaboration over this far-reaching network.
Initial funding for that work was with an NSF grant [#9983218], a relatively small planning grant in 1999. From there, about $10 million in NSF grants over the next several years, as well as a Department of Commerce grant, funded the building of an interoperable identity and access management infrastructure that enables access across the U.S. for academic scholars and researchers. And that work received acceptance and was adopted globally over time.
Much of the early work of the Internet2 Middleware Initiative came out of some highly regarded thought leadership, including Ken Klingenstein, who was then at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Bob Morgan, who was at the University of Washington.
Grush: So then InCommon has a rather long history, though not quite as long as Internet2?
Kevin Morooney: Correct. Work on InCommon itself, both as an organization and infrastructure, started in 1998/1999. About five years later, InCommon was stood up, and of course matured along with Internet2.
Grush: Today, how would you characterize InCommon? Why is it such a central piece of Internet2 and how is it perceived by the community?
Morooney: It is both a challenge and a delight to be part of the ecosystem that delivers on its promise in the numerous contexts of what InCommon means to many different people.
It is both a challenge and a delight to be part of the ecosystem that delivers on its promise in the numerous contexts of what InCommon means to many different people.
To some people, InCommon is a community. It's a community of people who care deeply about enabling collaboration — whether globally, nationally, or just within their own campus. They are passionate about enabling scholarship, which by its nature has required collaboration for thousands of years. Now that most scholarship has moved to digital environments, facilitating collaboration takes on new challenges, but it also affords really interesting opportunities as well. You can begin to pull together minds from all around the globe, leaders in their fields who can be brought together to address problems of real import to society at large.
So, it's a community of people who care about all of that and come together to determine and define common problems, identify common opportunities, and try to seize upon those opportunities with organizations like Internet2.