Common ELIXIR Service for Researcher Authentication and Authorisation.

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Scientific Computing Infrastructure

Background:

• A unified Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) is crucial for European bioinformatics.
• Managing user identities and privileges across diverse scientific services is complex.
• Existing systems often require researchers to maintain multiple credentials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the requirements and design of the ELIXIR AAI.
• To outline policies governing the use of ELIXIR AAI.
• To demonstrate the application of ELIXIR AAI across various scientific services.

Main Methods:

• Development of a centralized AAI solution for ELIXIR services.
• Implementation of single sign-on capabilities for researchers.
• Defining user privilege management and data protection policies.

Main Results:

• ELIXIR AAI launched in late 2016, integrated into the ELIXIR Compute platform.
• By end of 2017, 1000 users and 36 scientific services were utilizing the AAI.
• The system simplifies identity management for researchers and service providers.

Conclusions:

• ELIXIR AAI successfully enables seamless and secure access to ELIXIR services.
• It alleviates the burden of identity management for scientific service providers.
• The infrastructure supports compliance with data protection regulations and enhances research workflows.