Integration of national services into the ELIXIR compute platform

Many European infrastructures are currently developing own data and compute services while at the same time leveraging national services and integrating them with their framework. To grant access to users those infrastructures need to identify, i.e. authenticate, and authorise individuals and to this end build different Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructures (AAI). Those AAIs are not only built and operated on international, European level but also on national level by so called local National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). This could potentially create competing AAIs and hinder the integration between the actual data and compute services.

In this work we explore how an AAI from a European project can be integrated with a national AAI which then in turn is integrated with the national services. By this approach service providers will not be burdened with the integration of many different EU projects’ AAI. We base our work on the infrastructure and services provided by ELIXIR and the Dutch NREN SURF.