NIH Federated Authentication Town Hall

On November 29th, 2007, the Office of the Chief Information Technology Architect (OCITA) and the Center for Information Technology (CIT) hosted the NIH Federated Authentication Town Hall, designed to give the NIH community a closer look at the service.

Federated Authentication provides a better way for NIH staff to collaborate with colleagues from outside NIH, including those from universities, other Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Operating Divisions (OPDIVs), and other Federal agencies. Access and collaboration under Federation is streamlined because outside collaborators who are authorized by NIH research, grants, or administrative groups can use their credentials from their own organization for authentication.

OCITA and CIT used the Town Hall to give NIH stakeholders, such as software application program managers, lead customer contacts, and application developers, an overview of the services offered by the Federated Authentication project at NIH. The presentations emphasized the important role that Federated Authentication plays in cross-organizational identity management while also ensuring their audience understood both the benefits and the risks of using this service. The sessions provided technical details along with information on how to best use these features and discussions on the extent of users’ responsibilities with respect to securing their data.

Details of the Town Hall

The meeting began with opening remarks by Dr. Jack Jones, NIH Chief Information Officer (CIO), followed by a series of talks designed to afford a high-level overview of Federated Authentication. The overview talks included:

• "New CyberInfrastructure for Collaboration between Higher Ed and NIH", Ken Klingenstein, InCommon Federation


• "US Federal IdM/Federation Strategy and Your Apps", Peter Alterman, NIH E-Authentication and Chair, Federal PKI Policy Authority


• "Federation Observations & Tips", Chris Louden, E-Authentication Federated Architecture, Enspier Technologies


• "NIH Identify Federation", Valerie Wampler, NIH/CIT

A technical session, featuring a “Technical Overview and Demos” presentation by Debbie Bucci, NIH/CIT as well as a panel discussion with a Q&A session completed the town hall. In addition to the speakers, the panel included Jim Seach, Division of Information Technology, electronic Research Administration (eRA)/Office of Research Information Systems (ORIS)/Office of Extramural Research (OER)/Office of the Director (OD)/NIH, and Deborah Blanchard, Senior Consultant and Program Manager, Verizon Business Security Solutions.

Issues to consider

OCITA and CIT encourage all NIH stakeholders to consider the following questions and issues when exploring the use of Federated Authentication for collaborations:

• What does this service mean to me?


• How can I best take advantage of collaboration under Federated Authentication?


• What do I need to do to secure my application appropriately?

Benefits of Federated Authentication

The benefits of Federated Authentication result from the fact that application owners no longer need to maintain credentials for this potentially very large user base. This translates to a significant decrease in the time needed to set up and use applications collaboratively. Consequently, NIH has the added responsibility to certify applications to provide access only to those who have been authorized.

More information

More information on the Federated Authentication Town Hall can be found at http://enterprisearchitecture.nih.gov/About/NewsEvents/Other/FederatedAuthenticationTownHall.htm, which includes links to additional materials such as the presentation slides (NIH Identity Federation PowerPoint) and the videocast of the Town Hall.

For additional information on Federated Authentication at NIH, please send email to nihfederationrequest@mail.nih.gov.