Speaker
Description
B2DROP is a service offering from the EUDAT (EUropean DATa Infrastructure, eudat.eu) project. EUDAT is a collaborative pan-European infrastructure providing research data services, training, and consultancy for researchers, research communities, (national) research infrastructures, and data centres. It currently provides these services:
- B2DROP - Sync and Exchange Research Data,
- B2ACCESS - Manage Identity and Authorisation,
- B2SHARE - Store and Share Research Data,
- B2SAFE - Replicate Research Data Safely,
- B2STAGE - Move Data to Computation,
- B2FIND - Find Research Data
The service B2DROP is technically based on ownCloud - a self-hosted file sync and share software. It provides access to data/files via a web interface, sync clients, and WebDAV. With these functionalities it is a user friendly entrypoint to other EUDAT services.
Within the B2DROP development team there is ongoing effort to customize the ownCloud WebUI, so that it fits into the harmonized, branded visual identity of all user-facing EUDAT services. Another focus is on the integration of B2DROP with the EUDAT services suite, for example with B2SHARE and B2ACCESS.
One use-case for the integration with B2SHARE are researchers that work on a publication, synchronizing it across devices and sharing it with a limited number of users using B2DROP. After this publication is finalized, a user can simply click on a button in the WebUI and the final document is then transferred directly from B2DROP to B2SHARE for publishing purposes. During our presentation we will show how this integration works, which ownCloud framework parts we use and what we plan for the future.
For the integration with B2ACCESS, EUDAT’s Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure, we have spent effort into extending the ownCloud authentication mechanisms with SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) features. We will present our experiences with the Nextcloud user_saml plugin that wants to provide the aforementioned capabilities and that let us stop our effort, and we will present how this could change the B2DROP service in the future.
Current operational aspects will also be shared, for example deployment model and current usage.
