Speaker
Description
As part of the collaboration effort between GÉANT, CERN and ownCloud, in January 2015, an idea (aka. OpenCloudMesh, OCM) has been initiated to interconnect the individual on-premises private cloud domains at the server side in order to provide federated sharing and syncing functionality between the different administrative domains. The federated sharing protocol, in the first place, can be used to initiate sharing requests. If a sharing request is accepted or denied by the user on the second server than the accepted or denied codes are sent back via the protocol to the first server. Part of a sharing request is a sharing key which is used by the second server to access the shared file or folder. This sharing key can later be revoked by the sharer if the share has to be terminated.
The ultimate goal is to design and implement this protocol as an open federated sharing standard that can be deployed by different file-based sync and share services and providers. To achieve this, GÉANT should start engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders as well as participate in the related global standardisation efforts.
The OCM Project is implemented in phases:
• Phase I. (Oct 2015 – Feb 2016): Demonstrating the first working prototype of the OCM protocol (API v1.0 BETA) functionally working between two separate administrative ownCloud domains (i.e. between two NRENs).
• Phase II. (Feb 2016 – June 2016): Demonstrating the OCM protocol first implemented and working between two independent sync&share software vendors' domains. A live demonstration happened at TNC'16 in June 2016.
• Phase III. (June 2016 – Jan 2017): Creating a protocol description/definition that is compliant, described, neutral, modular, minimal, secure and robust in order to be implemented by any vendors.
• Phase IV. (Oct 2017 – May 2018): Aims at paving the way towards standardization. Explore patent and IPR issues, as well as the potential fora for initiating the standardization discussion. Need a reference installation (proxy) fully complaint with the latest specs.
Phase IV. is currently running. Contributions are very welcome!
