The Ministry of Informatics Supports the eduroam Project

Prague: In accordance with Government Resolution #105 of 25 January 2005, the Ministry of Informatics of the Czech Republic decided to financially support the "Project for Supporting the Network Infrastructure within the eduroam Academic Roaming System", coordinated by the CESNET association. The objective of the project is to support IP mobility and roaming within the CESNET2national research and education network. The outcome of the project should comprise network services with a form similar to that known from mobile telephony, enabling people to take advantage of roaming to make calls with their cell phones from any location. In the case of the pilot eduroam project in progress, implemented in the CESNET2 network, this principle means that every user has a single account established in his/her home network, enabling the user to utilize the wireless network of any other project member. In addition to CESNET, members include universities and departments of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic from the entire country.

The task of CESNET in the eduroam project lies in the coordination and promotion of activities related to roaming in computer networks, presenting Czech professional opinions on the European level and operating the RADIUS infrastructure comprising the servers needed to ensure interconnection with the European roaming structure.

However, the mobility and roaming implementations are still at the beginning, with most significant problems existing in the user area of authentication and authorization. Without a unified authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI), mobility is impossible. For the requirements of roaming, users only utilize a single identity, a single login (password) and a certificate or other features to identify themselves. These verification data are stored in every user's home network. When attempting to establish a connection, authentication is performed via AAI. The verification element in the visited network "asks" the authentication system in the user's home network whether the user is really the person he/she claims to be and whether the user is authorized to obtain access. Mutual trust among organizations is absolutely indispensable and crucial in a system defined in this manner, with the so-called pan-European interconnection policy playing a major role here. The basic principles of this policy have been agreed on by a large share of European national research and education networks, including CESNET2. This opens the way to roaming that covers the entire Europe, simplifying the work of thousands of users from the academic sector.

(More information on the eduroam project available at www.eduroam.cz.)

The CESNET association has been founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Committee for the Research and Education and the resources of the members of the association. The association performs research and development in the area of information and communication technologies, building and developing the national gigabit optical network CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. Due to the research activities and results achieved, the CESNET association acts as a representative of the Czech Republic in the project within which a pan-European network called GEANT2 is being constructed, also taking part actively in the implementation of this project. Among other things, the association supports IP mobility and roaming within the CESNET2 research network and deals with the development and implementation of an "inter-domain" distributed infrastructure, providing authentication and authorization services for supporting the cooperation of users registered in various home institutions.