Category: Swiss edu-ID

Two and a half weeks before the semester start, a message went through the SWITCH internal chat saying that the 250’000th SWITCH edu-ID account had just been created! We actually assumed that this would happen only a few weeks later. However, apparently many new students from universities that have already adopted the SWITCH edu-ID, recently created their proper edu-ID account. This went so smooth that we didn’t even notice it, at least not from the number of tickets in our end user support queue, which showed only a minimal increase.

But this was not the only record to celebrate. On the second day of the new semester, 1594 new accounts were created within 24 hours. This number is 40% higher than the old record from exactly one year ago.

We have indeed been very busy in these last weeks increasing the scalability of the SWITCH edu-ID service and its components. The most important component is the IdP, as it has to be up and running 24×7, regardless of the load that the end users bring when logging in to their services. I’m very happy and relieved that this service could be put behind a load balancer, and that it received a twin worker node to start with. More such worker nodes can from now on easily be added if necessary. With this scalability increase, our infrastructure was able to stand the load increase that came along with the semester start, see the figure:

We are hoping that our service will continue to run so smoothly and we will do whatever is necessary in order to keep up with the increasing demands of our user.

Monday, August the 3rd, 2020: The day starts with a big bang. Early in the morning, the engineers at SWITCH “flip the switch” (pun intended) and Berner Fachhochschule (BFH) has gone edu-ID.

Philippe Seewer, IT software engineer / IT architect at BFH, gives an insight into the preparatory work at BFH:

Significant changes are tough

Well, to be honest, it is probably more a loud pop than the proverbial start of the universe. Still, it is a change that affects pretty much everyone in our organization. For a long time, almost all publicly accessible non-Microsoft resources have used SWITCHaai as the method of choice for authentication. Among these is our own Moodle server – today an essential service for all courses. No access to Moodle does not necessarily mean classes would shut down, but it would undoubtedly be a lot harder.

Accordingly, we selected August for the switch on purpose. Although the bachelor/master semester start is a few weeks off, research and continuing education courses take place. However, since it is a bit quieter than other times of the year, this gives us at IT-Services the necessary time to implement significant changes.
Continue reading “BFH goes edu-ID”

End of June 2020 PH Zurich has adopted SWITCH edu-ID.

Pascal Schmitt, team leader webcenter PH Zurich about this experience:

“With regard to the future library system solution SLSP, PH Zurich has decided to push the changeover from SWITCHaai to SWITCH edu-ID.

After the first technical workshop with SWITCH, it soon became clear that we would opt for a loose integration of edu-ID (linking after admission scenario) and that this would mean an easily manageable effort for us to implement the necessary changes.
A central identity management system was already in place at PH Zurich and it was only a matter of

• connecting the affected edu-ID identifiers with the account information of the PH Zurich and to
• extend some processes.

However, there was a challenge that we did not see from the beginning: In order to ensure compatibility with SWITCHaai – specifically that service providers already using SWITCHaai recognize a person even after the adoption of edu-ID – the former AAI ID must be written into the affiliation itself. This has to be taken into consideration when building a so-called linking service.

The tests ran all perfectly and the switch was made in no time.
Only 4 months passed from the decision to implement SWITCH edu-ID to the actual conversion. This fast changeover was also possible thanks to the good and timely support by SWITCH.”

Links:

• Short information for students
• Linking service of PHZH

In autumn, we’ll all be voting on a new E-ID law. Will we need more digital identities in future? Or can we look forward to a time when passwords are a thing of the past?
Read on to find out how SWITCH is working to make SWITCH edu-ID future-proof.

Update 6 May 2020/cg: Due to shifted priorities in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, SWITCH decided to add an additional call for participation. This article – originally published in February 2020 – is now being republished with new timing information.

The Swiss edu-ID project has been running since 2014 and comprises several phases. The last phase starts in May July 2020 and is expected to last until the end of 2020 (Deployment Step 4.23).

In this phase, universities can again submit project applications for planning & migration to SWITCH edu-ID.

LAST OPPORTUNITY TO APPLY FOR FEDERAL FUNDING, which will be made available by swissuniversities within the framework of the P-5 programme.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS IS 31 MARCH May 2020.

Eligible to apply are recognised universities which have already started planning work (regardless of whether this work has been completed so far or not).
The application should be made using the sub-project application form.
In the case of a migration project, the application is supplemented by a brief description of the scenarios and the procedure.
If you have any questions and in order to obtain the appropriate template, please contact eduid@switch.ch.

In the meantime, six universities and two other organisations have switched to SWITCH edu-ID. Various universities are already planning to switch from AAI to SWITCH edu-ID in 2020. Interested institutions should therefore announce their plans as soon as possible, so that SWITCH can coordinate the preparatory work and changeover date with them.