Neil Witheridge

Eduroam AU BoF

In March 2011, AARNet transitioned the eduroam AU service from 'project' status to being a production service under AARNet's Operations Division. It's high time for an eduroam BoF at QUESTnet so that eduroam administrators and interested parties can meet face-face and exchange information and perhaps promote a more active community of eduroam administrators.

Neil Witheridge, AARNet's manager responsible for eduroam AU, will kick-off the BoF with a ~20 min presentation on the current state of eduroam AU. The remaining 40 minutes will be open discussion, or additional presentation on topics of interest.

Various topics will be open for discussion, including:

Global eduroam
- role of the Global eduroam Governance Committee, eduroam Global policy, global growth in eduroam participation and usage

eduroam AU
- growth in institutional participation and usage (with up-to-date eduroam AU usage metrics)
- status of eduroam AU policy, e.g. eligibility to participate as IdP+SP or SP-Only
- status of National & APAN infrastructure
- AARNet operational goals: eduroam AU service monitoring, usage metrics, provision of information resources, auditing, provision of eduroam at HE&R events
- potential to extend eduroam AU footprint (mainly SP-Only)
- current eduroam technical "gotcha's" & remedial actions

Future
- technology advancements (e.g. RadSec), dynamic discovery rather than hierarchical configuration
- looking to the future of eduroam and related initiatives e.g. Project Moonshot, Global Federated Identity Management.

Improving eduroam
- BoF participants' view on how AARNet can improve the eduroam AU service

The eduroam AU BoF is of relevance to IT staff, in particular eduroam administrators, from institutions which participate or wish to participate in eduroam AU. Anyone interested in eduroam is welcome to attend.

Neil Witheridge's Biography

Neil Witheridge is AARNet’s Manager, Authentication and Authorisation Services. Neil has been working in the Australian HE&R sector for the past 9 years, involved in SII funded projects at Macquarie University which introduced Internet2’s Shibboleth federated identity infrastructure to Australia & established a pilot federation, then the NCRIS-funded ARCS project integrating federated identity and access with ARCS services (e.g. Grid tools, Data Fabric) and developing the ARCS Access Service. Neil is currently responsible for the “eduroam AU” service operated by AARNet, as well as providing technical support for federated services and development activities contributing to AARNet’s services strategy, recently focusing on SURFnet’s OpenConext. Neil has a Master of Engineering Science degree from University of Sydney.