 |
 |
[With apologies for cross-posting] It has come to Eduserv's attention that some members of the HE library community believe the AthensDA service will be offered by Eduserv at either little or no cost to institutions after the JISC funding terminates in 2008. The basis for this seems to be the notion that as users are authenticated locally using their institution's servers and associated infrastructure, there is a little or no use made of Eduserv's infrastructure, and therefore the costs will be lower. I would like to point out that this view is based on an incomplete understanding of how AthensDA works, and that Eduserv have made no further announcement about the costs of either the classic Athens or AthensDA service since the letter to institutions was sent in March 2006 (http://www.athensams.net/news/eduserv_aim_letter0303.pdf). Although AthensDA users are authenticated locally, so there is no need to create classic Athens accounts, AthensDA users use exactly the same infrastructure as classic Athens users. They connect seamlessly to external service providers via our resilient, distributed infrastructure of Athens authentication points. AthensDA users are therefore benefiting from the same service that has delivered 100% service availability to classic Athens users since 1999. Athens permission sets, usage statistics, the Home Domain Discovery Service, server certificates and AthensDA software are all managed via the Athens administrator interface. In addition, the AthensDA software itself needs to be supported, as FE and HE institutions are continuing to implement AthensDA. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the costs per AthensDA account are likely to be the same unit cost as for classic Athens, but we can't give any additional information at this stage. We are working closely with the JISC on the formation of the UK Access Management Federation, but with the postponement of the launch of the Federation to January 2007, and the fact that the institutional preparedness audit has not yet started, clearly no-one is in a position to understand the full implications at the moment. Eduserv do not want to commit to a pricing policy to be applied two years hence which could turn out to be either unviable for the UK academic sector, or uneconomic for Eduserv, when the landscape is still somewhat uncertain. What we have done is supplied a ceiling cost to help institutions plan their budgets as best they can. If you wanted to calculate what the highest possible figure could be, a couple of options occur: * you could take your total student population (such as that reported to HESA), and multiply that by 50p per person. You might consider that an unrealistic metric, but at least you would know that the total fees could not exceed that figure, which some people may find useful. * alternatively, you could use either locally-generated usage statistics or Athens usage stats to see how many unique users logged into Athens in a single calendar or academic year. Using the 50p figure, this would also give you an approximate ceiling figure you could use in your budgets. The JISC and Eduserv (through the MATU service) are working on a business case template for institutions to use when considering whether to implement Shibboleth(r) and other SAML-based authentication mechanisms locally. When this document is made available, each institution will be able to make a balanced judgment on what their choices are. If you have any questions about any aspect of the Athens service, please do not hesitate to contact me. Regards Phil Leahy Product Manager Eduserv Athens access management ________________________________ [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> tel: +44 (0)1225 474302 fax: +44 (0)1225 474332 http://www.eduserv.org.uk/athens/ <http://www.eduserv.org.uk/athens/> ________________________________ Eduserv Athens is a service of Eduserv Technologies Limited Unless otherwise agreed expressly in writing by a senior manager of Eduserv, this communication is to be treated as confidential and the information in it may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it has been sent. If you have reason to believe that you are not the intended recipient of this communication, please contact the sender immediately. No employee or agent is authorised to enter into any binding agreement or contract on behalf of Eduserv or Eduserv Technologies Ltd., unless that agreement is subsequently confirmed by the conclusion of a written contract or the issue of a purchase order.